Leaving there for retrieving here

Unpuzzling the puzzle

Daily, I attempt two puzzles as early as possible, first, I do the Wordle which I now have a maximum and current winning streak of over 300 and then the Sudoku app on my phone at the Expert level of difficulty.

This mental exercise is useful and interesting, especially the Sudoku I strive to solve without error. Yet, there are times I make a mistake or two, which can happen, but what annoys me is when I make an obvious mistake, being blind to a number already in a row or column more than in a 3-by-3 box, at other times, it is the fat-finger; clicking on a number other than the one I intended.

Seeking the seeing aid

It is the presence of mind or the absence of thought and the battle to retain some sort of control of things and usually a lot appears to be totally out of control.

For instance, I was looking for my second pair of eyeglasses, a quest I embarked upon over a month ago without success. I had looked in every box, every bag, my travel suitcases and anywhere else you will not expect to find eyeglasses.

Now, I have so many eyeglasses cases around my apartment, it is a litany of experimentation and history apart from the letter that arrived last week reminding me of the need for a new eye test. While I had not given up and Brian was encouragingly suggesting I would eventually find them; I was getting perplexed.

Preordered for the future

In the gathering of the kit for a role, I formally exited at the end of last month, I looked on a shelf and there were 4 eyeglass cases I did not realise I had put there some time ago. I opened each case, and they had the last two pairs of eyeglasses I had before my current prescription, the third had the pair I was looking for.

My surprise, and again a sense of order that had those cases put apart on the shelf at a time I could not recall, but has now served the purpose intended, easy access if one can just remember where things were put.

Now, I have always prided myself and this is not a knack I had well into adolescence of knowing where I have put something I have handled myself. There is knowledge beyond the sixth sense I need to review to find some things. A calmness of mind, a steading of thought, and a dispelling of anxiety or worry are all necessary to gain that new insight, but I sadly do not use it enough to my advantage.

Figures in the numbers

Numbers in my eyes

I like the numbers game, the order of numbers, the mystery of numbers, the codes in numbers, the recall of numbers and puzzles based on numbers. One of the first things I learnt about numbers was how to determine a number was divisible by 3, as long as the numbers each when added up was a multiple of 3, it was divisible by 3, from that I could determine those divisible by 6 or 9.

Then every time I see a number I am doing a mental exercise in the realm of 3s and other multiples of the same besides trying to find numerical mnemonics that would help me remember long numbers, telephone numbers, dates, and other associations.

Puzzled by numbers

However, the numbers puzzle that most interests me is Sudoku, and whilst I don’t play it that often, I have had a few apps on my mobile phone to engage me in idle times to engage my mind to find the arrangement and order to complete the puzzle, sometimes to best my times, but mostly never to place a number in error through the process.

The easy puzzles are boring, I find no pleasure in them, sometimes the easier ones exhaust too much mental energy, whereas the fiendish and complex ones where sometimes you are taxed and almost frustrated as the minutes tick away until there is a breakthrough, what you have been staring at for long suddenly comes into the focus leading to the solution and satisfaction of personal triumph.