I read somewhere that sudoku is good for the brain. It apparently keeps us sharp, slowing cognitive decline and reducing the risk of dementia. The spouse recently retired from work and I took early retirement from work last year itself.
The work that kept us busy for several years is not keeping us busy anymore. Work which was actively part of our lives for eight hours a day and passively for a substantial part for the rest of the time doesn't exist anymore for us. I took matters in my hand when I observed the spouse spending more and more time with the TV and electronic gadgets.
I gently instructed that he had to mandatorily complete the sudoku puzzle in the newspaper everyday. As much as he likes to do the sudoku, he doesn't like taking instructions from the spouse. But, anyway after much gentle prodding (please read as nagging), he set out on this daily activity.
We get two newspapers at our home (don’t ask why, long story). Since I was also worried about my own cognitive abilities, I thought it best that I should start solving these puzzles as well. So he solved one and I solved one. Later I found that the paper has another cross sudoku puzzle in which the numbers 1 to 9 have to appear diagonally as well. So I started solving that too, making it two puzzles a day.
Let me disclose here that I am not one to give up easily. It doesn't come naturally to me. If I take up a task, I have to complete it. Leaving things unfinished is not my forte. But, the puzzles are not all the same, they vary between easy, medium, hard and very hard in one newspaper and in the other it is rated from 1 to 5 stars with increasing levels of difficulty.
Little did I know what I was getting into. I have been feeling purposeless for a while, thinking that probably I have no further “purpose” and probably I have fulfilled the "purpose" of my life on this planet. The minute I think of alternate purposes, I find reasons not to take it up. Everything I think of requires too much effort and time in my mind. As of now, I feel completely saturated by all the time and effort I have put into living so far. The only purpose I want now is to eat, sleep, exercise, read, watch TV, socialise etc. I only want to put time and effort into activities that I thoroughly enjoy, because I want to and I can.
But, I think I have finally found my purpose. Maybe, just maybe, my further purpose in life is to solve sudoku puzzles. I solve my regular puzzle and the cross sudoku puzzle and feel smug about it. But some days are so challenging:
I make mistakes, erase, solve, re-erase, solve …
I don’t get beyond a few numbers and ask the spouse to step in.
Sometimes he is also not able to solve it and I spend several more hours trying to crack it.
Sometimes I solve two of mine successfully and in the “success breeds success” mindset attack the third one (sometimes left unfinished by the spouse) as well, spending several futile hours in the pursuit of further success.
While it is great “not to give up”, it takes some humility to realise “when to give up”. The spouse just nonchalantly says “today it is too tough” and gets on with the rest of his day. But, as I have mentioned in one of my earlier essays, I am like Jacques Clouseau in this scene from the Pink Panther, “I don’t give up”. I keep at it, wasting several hours in the process neglecting all the other tasks that could have been completed in that time.
They say electronic devices and social media are bad for you because they are addictive in nature. Now whoever thought that sudoku could be this addictive. Or probably it is just my brain’s way of keeping me away from other important activities that I must do.
Maybe its avoidance strategy, working at its best, trying to avoid the cognitive work that I should actually be investing my time in such as: The recipe book that I promised to write for my kid sister R4 and my son A1 or learning to solve the 3x3 Rubik’s cube as promised to my son A2 or just write the Substack essays that stay in my head but never see the light of the day.
Are you also sudoku-ing like me or have you found your purpose?
Never tried Sudoku as I ended up having a bad aversion to numbers. Agree with the rest of the folks that your style is such a breeze to read!
During the second wave, I used to write one haiku everyday which is also like solving a puzzle - we have to fit right words into the required syllable count, and the added challenge is to make it meaningful and even beautiful! Some days i would get done even before stepping out of bed, but on other days, it would occupy my mind at every free moment.