Simple Life Lessons From A Rubik's Cube.

 

Courtesy of Serg Antonov.

- Life is a puzzle made of seemingly infinite possibilities — billions, maybe trillions — certainly too many to count. However, if you can find your stride, maintain your patterns, and stay in rhythm, there is no possibility you can’t solve.

- Life is colorful. Sometimes those colors are uniform, and sometimes they’re chaotic. Sometimes you try to set them right, and sometimes they take on a mind of their own, say flock all, and make their own patterns. Those colors can seem overwhelming if you don’t know what you’re looking at. But if you dissect them, see them for what they are, understand where they belong, and have a road map for how to get them there, no color combination is too severe to set right.

- The road map to life is yours to discover, but it helps to follow tried-and-true advice if you want to streamline the process.

- Become good enough at something, and that something could become a party trick.

- Even when the colors are uniform, even when they’re right where you want them to be, the temptation arises to destroy what you’ve created and solve the puzzle once more.

- Life can be a little jarring if you’re color-blind.

- Winning is a temporary satisfaction. The real satisfaction comes in passing on what you know to others, whether through show or tell. Kids are the second-most satisfying people to pass on knowledge to. The first-most satisfying are your elders. 

- Bonus points if the knowledge does not fall on deaf ears, though one does not need to hear, or even see, to solve the puzzle.

- If the grid you’re playing on no longer satisfies you, it is time to level up and expand what you know, whether it's a 2x2, 4x4, 5x5, or dodecahedron. This step will repeat until the puzzle becomes too complicated, you get bored, or you die.

- None of this should deter you from trying to solve the puzzle. After all, it's why you picked it up in the first place.