The Game of life.

I had never seen such a thing before, well I probably had but had not taken full cognisance of what I was seeing. I was walking along a track at the side of a field. The field was enclosed by a high deer fence with a very large mesh. As I passed I large group of blackbirds that had been perched on a tree on the other side of the track took to flight. They flew toward the fence and without a moment's hesitation flew right through the mesh.

They had not slowed down, they had all flown through a sperate part of the mesh or had managed to arrive at the mesh seconds behind the bird before it and no collision occurred.

I was mesmerised by what I had just witnessed. I stood in awe and looked again at the mesh. Where the gap was there were nine sections across and nine sections down. So 81 holes through which the birds were able to make a clear passage.  There were a great many birds flying at speed and they had all managed to hit the right gap at the right time.

As I walked further thinking of what I had just witnessed I realised that the mesh was like a sudoku puzzle. Nine by Nine.

Of course, the rest of my walk was a flight of fancy, thinking about the birds and the mesh and what I had seen. Some further thought I had because for a time I did sudoku on a regular basis.

The puzzle (life itself) is a quest for the truth. If something is wrong in one area of your life, it makes it wrong in all areas. One thing should be painfully obvious about a wrong answer, it is far from the truth.  Truth, like Sudoku, never relies upon guesswork.

You begin Sudoku, as you do life, with many unanswered questions. Yet, the numbers do not fear the unknown or fear being exposed. Nor do they worry that the secret they hold will be discovered. Many humans do, but once the truth is revealed, they are relieved of these burdens.

The empty boxes are like future dates on the calendar. No one knows what they hold until they are filled in. The facts of life (the puzzle) may be a mystery, but with enough work, the truth will reveal itself… like the unfolding of a day, an answer coming into being and written into place.

You begin Sudoku, as you do life, with certain unchangeable elements already in place. These unchangeable elements are inviolable, sacrosanct, untouchable. These invisible laws of life require the same respect. They require us to learn to accept things as they are.

The numbers cannot argue about the position they are in. If they had a mind, they would accept the fact that their creator of the puzzle placed them there for a reason. We are not simply a number waiting to be discovered. But like a number in a Sudoku puzzle, each of us is in a unique position to be the answer that others are looking for.

There is only one you in this world, and in the grand scheme of things. There has never been, nor ever will be another you living at this particular intersection of time and place in world history. 

You and me we all have our part to play in the great scheme of life. 

And how much better it is when we help each other to pass through the snares of the day.

Have a marvellous day, and may it be puzzle free.