On the rare occasion I’m sitting at my girlfriend’s house, and a group of us are watching television, I find myself far more interested in her family’s Rubik cube that sits ignored next to the TV. At first, I tend to try ignoring it, and focusing on whatever show is on, but eventually, it overcomes me. My urge to rotate those squares into an ever-challenging and frustrating color unity is too strong for me. I tend to block out the rest of the room for however long we planned on being in the living room, and I just play with the puzzle.
Her father took note of my subtle obsession, and gave me a Rubik’s Cube for my 21st birthday last month. Most of the people that hadn’t seen me play with one previously thought it was an absurd present, but I was delighted to have it.
The next day, we had some friends over. I had rotated it in three spots, and I knew how to get it back to perfect. I left our dining room for a few minutes, and some of our guests had taken turns trying to solve what I had done, and just made everything worse. I learned my lesson, and now keep the cube in my room.
I think life is a lot like a Rubik’s cube. When you start out, everything seems balanced. Everything feels like it’s where it belongs. But then something small changes. Whether it’s your fault or not, and you find yourself with a green/white/orange corner piece in your yellow/blue/red corner.
And because it’s small, you think you can handle this issue. You got yourself into this mess, you can get yourself out. So you rotate the cube a few more times, and now an entire stripe across the entire thing is wrong.
So you try to take it all back, but you can’t. You forgot steps 2 and 3 out of 5, and now nothing is right! You have no choice but to keep fighting this STUPID toy until you magically get everything right again. It’s frustrating and it makes you miserable.
And eventually, you think you start getting the hang of it. You have all the White squares on the White side, so you move onto Orange. But as you get the Orange cross solved, you notice that you’ve DESTROYED white! It’s a delicate balance and you CANNOT solve it on your own!
I went on youtube and found several incredibly polite and educated men that explain these crazy little things called algorithms to people as if it were something simple, like boiling water. An algorithm is basically a pattern, and when applied to Rubik’s cubes, knowing them is key to solving the toy. More importantly, it’s youtube, so it’s not like you test their patience if you don’t understand the first time. You just watch it again until it makes sense.
Typically this last month the band was home, my Rubik cube sits maybe 2 feet from my laptop, keeper of youtube’s secrets. I could go online, find someone that has the answers for my frustrations, and seek help. I could have this entire cube solved in maybe 15 minutes.
The problem is that I’m stubborn. I made it this far on my own, I can get the rest!
Keep in mind, I’ve gotten TWO SOLID ROWS around the thing solved, TWICE. I mean, I have gotten pretty far on my own. I’m not saying I’m a genius or anything, rather the opposite, so this is really an accomplishment for me.
I have the answers right in front of me, and I’m too stubborn and lazy to go get them. I’ll post a picture or something when I solve it.