Do you like pizza? I’m going to take a guess that there’s a 90% chance you do – so there’s a common preference we can (likely) agree upon. Whenever you eat a slice of pizza, you are participating in centuries of human ideas and hard work. From ancient times, when flatbread was topped with various add-ons, to the Italians that popularized the current definition of pizza, to the invention and modernization of the slice you’re eating – likely from a chain that’s been around for over 50 years. Every single moment in that chain of events has led to you eating this slice of pizza.
“Well, of course the invention of pizza has led me to eating pizza, you idiot,” you may be saying, shaking your fistful of pizza at the screen, but there’s a point to this, you’ll see. Pizza isn’t the only thing, that was just the example. In reality, everything that is happening and ever will happen is based on the foundation of what has happened. Each event is a puzzle piece in a jigsaw puzzle that never completes, only grows bigger. Each one of us is just another piece in this.
If the world – both space and time – a puzzle, then, isn’t it logical to say there is a definitive answer to everything? To that I say ‘no.’ This isn’t a puzzle with a set answer, it’s constantly expanding, the picture is always changing. The pieces that have been set cannot be removed, replaced, or recoloured, but new pieces are being placed down constantly – and that we can control. You can control.
Things, naturally, tend to come together. The universe may be uncaring, unbiased, neutral, but it certainly isn’t messy. Everything that has happened has led to what is currently happening, and everything that is currently happening is leading to what will happen.
Now, for the takeaway, in my humble opinion:
You are placing down puzzle pieces every day of your life. The past cannot be changed, but the future can. When you place down your pieces, you often base them around the colours and shapes of the ones nearby – the norms. That simply expands the preexisting picture, and that’s often okay. If you place down a different piece – of a different colour, of a different shape – it may end up being considered a “defect”, an out of place piece for the current picture. But, just maybe, it will end up being the base for the start of a new part of the puzzle – a new, beautiful picture will emerge.
If life is a jigsaw puzzle, the goal isn’t to solve it, it’s to have fun with it – so take a risk, maybe you’ll change the picture if even just a little.
Enjoy your pizza, friend.