I saw an analogy the other day.
It was using the doing of a jigsaw puzzle as a metaphor for life. It was a good premise, as far as it went. It described the playing out of life as the gradual collecting of puzzle pieces of who you are and what you want. But that almost no one knows where to start putting those pieces because some seem totally random and weird, while other seem mundane and boring.
Like that time you went to pick up the pizza some years ago, only to run into Frank (it might actually have been Francis, but that’s not the important bit…). Frank was wearing fluro green fisherman’s pants, huge white gumboots, a red singlet, covered by an apron featuring a pair of those “hilarious” fake comedy boobs. He had just jumped out of the dumpster from the side of the building with a long cable and a thrown away keyboard, which he managed to hang around his neck using the cable. He then entered the pizza store to ask some fairly obscure questions of the staff, like “how heavy would you say that pizza oven is?” and “why do you think people choose red capsicum over green?” whereupon receiving an answer would then fake type (you know, when the person in a movie pretends to type fast, random keys that make it look interesting) the answer on his newfound keyboard to add more vital information to his growing database. Then you received your pizza and left after only the first 4 questions, and then proceeded home to eat a nice quiet meal with your family like it was any other Tuesday.
I mean, what kind of puzzle piece is that?
Are they two separate pieces?
Why are they so completely polarised and at odds with each other?
Do they even make the jigsaw puzzle piece cut as formative moments that add to the metaphor of your life?
Well, you can decide that for yourself. Frank/Francis did show you a LOT about how to live life on a certain level.
Anyway…
The reason I bring this up is because the value in the jigsaw puzzle is a valuable metaphor when trying to make sense of life, and finding meaning in moments.
The analogy continued, that making sense of life often needs some major components and guidelines, to give it some corners and edge pieces. Like friends, family, job, interests, that sort of thing. All important things in anyone’s life.
All of those things give value and externalised sources that help define meaning, but not necessarily who and what is at the centre of the puzzle.
If you’ve ever read any of my previous stuff, you likely have a pretty good idea of where I’m heading with what might possibly be at the middle of this meaningful jigsaw puzzle. But don’t skip ahead please Mikael, its rude and there may be other amusing dad jokes between now and then.
Now, the reason I was even hearing about this analogy was because the person talking about it was disagreeing with the person who originally told him about the analogy. The first teller was trying to help his 7 year old son figure out the meaning of life, and was explaining the things that add to the edge pieces and corners of experience and meaning eventually fill the picture in the middle as the person you’re supposed to be with.
Yep, he told his child that… That your purpose, that the meaning of life, is the partner you are with at the time.
You can already hear the disagreement coming, can’t you?
Now, I’m hearing this jigsaw analogy for the now grown 26 year old son who has awakened to the idea that this is not, and has not, been a successful way for him to live his life to this point. Quite the opposite, truth be told. I can totally relate. Wasn’t much fun for me either.
Quite rightly, the analogy teller (sorry, Teegs, the teller that I’m listening too) called out this and spent many many minutes explaining the partners he’d experienced that showed him how wrong this way of living life can go. It was funny, which was convenient because he is a comedian.
He then came to the conclusion that any jigsaw puzzle metaphor for life and purpose that doesn’t have You™ in the middle, is a great way to be miserable and angsty and disappointed in your own life. To never really know yourself, let alone be happy and authentically happy.
Which I agreed with wholeheartedly. Until I thought a little more about it.
I think it goes deeper.
Yes, Barry, I’m going on one of those long winded “philosophical” discussions again about meaning and metaphor and how it all intertwines within you. No, I won’t make it about something other than puzzles. No, Barry, not even car engines… Because, Barry, when you create a narrative theme, changing it suddenly on the reader alienates them and loses the value you’re trying to deliver. No, BARRY, I don’t care if I’m alienating you because by not using car engines as the metaphor. …Because, Barry, I’m using someone else’s analogy and I think its rude to change it. And I don’t think researching a Holden LH Torana engines spec is the best use of my time. I’m sorry, that’s just how I feel.
So, can we get on now? Please?
Jeez Barry...
Anyway…
I say deeper. I mean… more multi-layered I think. But I'll stay with deeper.
You ARE the jigsaw puzzle.
Not just the image at the center once you’ve compiled enough pieces to complete the edges and ground your way through the dark bits that are really hard to do because there’s not many defining features to line its placement up with. We’ve all done one of THOSE jigsaw puzzles, haven’t we?
Nor just the end result of things that are around you while you exist, like family and friends and a job and interests.
All those experiences and people and things and moments found and left behind, are elements of you. As those a series of small images that happen to fit together can define you, regardless of the validity of what is at the center of it.
You are much bigger than corners and edge pieces. Those are BITS of you, not the things that define the outer edges of you.
And here is what I meant by multilayered.
You ARE the jigsaw puzzle, but also the DOER of the jigsaw puzzle.
How do we put together a jigsaw puzzle?
By making some sense of what the little discernible thing on the piece is trying to show us and then figuring out, sooner or later, what the hell it means and finding a place where the sense made of that piece adds value to the other pieces around it.
Each and every day, you make sense of your life and experience (You DO the jigsaw), in order to get a better understanding of yourself (You ARE the jigsaw).
The problem most people have is that stuff just seems impossible to make sense of. Like Frank/Francis for example.
But if you put no effort in to making sense of it, looking at those moments and finding where they may fit and add value to the bigger picture of you, they stay lost and random. And so do you.
If we allow this within ourselves, we don’t have the ability to relate to ourselves. There is no center of the picture.
But we hate that not being finished gap in the middle. And if we have already had out outer borders defined by external validation, we may as well use the same thing for that gap in the middle. Can tell you from experience, it doesn't work out.
Once you start to appreciate that you are the Are and the DOER, those corners and edges cease to be borders and lines of definition. Because if you want to evolve and grow, you will grow beyond those borders and edges, adding pieces to the complexity that is you and your life on those out areas that don’t need that level of defining anymore.
Because you realise the truth.
You are everything on those jigsaw puzzle pieces, including the bits that keep adding.
You are the image you are trying to create
You are the board that is overlayed on.
You are the one putting it all together.
Okay, so maybe we’re getting tired of the analogy now…
What do you want your puzzle to look like?
How complete do we want to be?
Who are you?
Be kind, be smart, be your best you. No bar fights.
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” E.F. Schumacher
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