Puzzle pieces

There is a certain spirituality in the process of putting a jigsaw puzzle together, I think. I've recently developed a keen interest in them - something about the creation process has drawn me in.

I always start with the border - looking for pieces that have a straight edge... boundaries. Learning where we fit in, how we operate and interact within our different communities, and how and when we choose separation from others.

Then I start to find pieces that are colored similarly, grouping them together, hoping that they fit well and belong together. We develop our identities through our groups, our circles, and within these, we hope we find a community of good-fit and belonging. However, even within each person, there are different groups we belong to, and different identities we take on, depending on who we are with, and the situation we are in. The different clusters of jigsaw pieces join together to form a bigger picture - the lifelong process of integrating the different aspects of our lives holistically contributes to shaping who we are as an integrated individual.

As the process continues, there have been moments when I've found myself feeling dizzy and needing to take a break from the process which I've subconsciously been consumed by - the level of concentration can be exhausting. Self-care, a component we often tend to somehow be most willing to sacrifice before all else, is essential to us being effective in our work, healthy in our relationships, and balanced in our lives. Quality self-care is necessary for us to live in right relationship with the world.

Until the puzzle is complete, there's typically no way for me to know if I have all the pieces present, or if I'm missing any piece (such is the concern purchasing a used puzzle from a thrift store). There is an eagerness; a sense of anticipation throughout the entire process - I could try to count all the pieces beforehand, but I prefer to focus on the process - I could be (and have been) surprised by a complete puzzle, or I could be left with empty spaces. Sometimes, right at the brink of giving up finding that one missing piece, I see it laying in the corner patiently, waiting to be discovered - hope. Sometimes the piece is lying right in front of me, but I miss it in my impatience and narrowed vision, and I end up expending unnecessary energy searching for something that has been right in front of me all along.

Sometimes I cheat and look at the picture provided on the box, hoping to gain some guidance and direction in moments of desperation and when I'm feeling discouraged. I can think of many people in my life who I've sought and gained guidance and direction from - people that kept me going, like water stops during a marathon, and people who have unintentionally but undeniably left a deep impression on who I am today. We don't have to do everything by ourselves, and if allow the concept of individualism and self-righteousness to break down, "cheat" a little in life by accepting help, guidance and a different perspective, maybe we will be able to move forward with a renewed sense of purpose and direction, energized by relationships and diversity.

Some puzzles take a longer time than others to complete - some are more difficult than others. We may take a different approach with some puzzles - some have words, some have color patterns, some are really oddly-shaped. Each puzzle is different and unique, each puzzle has a different surprise in store for us, and at the end of each process, the sense of satisfaction is uniquely distinct. Sometimes it takes a longer time for us to find that missing puzzle piece, and sometimes we don't ever find it, so we may choose to fill it in some other way, or leave it open as a reminder that not everything in life is flawless or best-fit, and there's always something deeper we long for; some mystery within ourselves and others that we may do best to continue to live in wonder of.

Ticky-tock goes the clock

The wall clock we bought for our office is very loud... in moments of absolute silence and when I'm being fully present to the moment. Strange, how I don't hear it during most of the day, yet it is always ticking, whether or not I'm paying attention to it. It's a constant presence, steady and regular in the background, only heard in moments of silence and intentional awareness, and in such moments, it is loud, demanding our attention, refusing to be ignored. 

It's kinda like God, isn't it? 

Accepting Ignorance

“Wow, you speak English really well; you don’t even have an accent!” I always feel awkward and a little embarrassed when I respond, “Thank you, we speak English in Singapore – it’s our first language,” and add, “but we do have an accent!” to make the other party feel a little better.

I always get asked if I feel offended at people asking me questions that appear ignorant, like the example above, or others like, “Is Singapore in China?” or “So what’s your real name?” with the assumption that I adopted an “American” name upon my arrival in the United States. Sometimes, I do not even get asked - someone else, fully well-intentioned, volunteers to feel offended on my behalf. The truth is I do not feel offended when people express ignorance through asking questions, because it is humility that allows them to risk appearing ignorant, and it is an invitation into an honest conversation. More importantly, it allows me to forgive my own ignorance about issues that are currently beyond my scope of knowledge, and frees me from my pride that prevents me from admitting that I do not know everything. Really, who does?

We are all ignorant about something, whether or not we would like to admit it. Someone may have a full experience with issues of hunger and homelessness, and be clueless about issues of environmental sustainability. Someone who is well-versed in issues of racial injustice in the United States may not know much about issues of human-trafficking in Russia. We cannot know everything, and there is beauty in that, because that has the potential to bring us together so we can learn from each other. However, this requires us to start from a place of humility, which can sometimes be a huge challenge, because it demands vulnerability and trust in others.

I recently started to realize that while there are many societal issues I find to be important in addressing, I need to hone in on one or two and go deeper with them, committing to focusing my energy and my resources to them, as opposed to dabbling in the waters of a breadth of issues without really investing myself in anything. I used to want to learn about everything, thinking that hiding behind the projection of being well-informed would gain me credibility, dreading hearing the response, “How do you not know about that?” in a situation where I was forced to admit that I knew nothing about what was being talked about. However, what I soon learned was that the depth I was lacking due to the focus on breadth was leading me to place of false confidence. Information that I had was minimal and barely scratched the surface, but I misunderstood myself to be well-informed, which was more ignorant than not knowing anything at all.

The way I see it, pride is the biggest and most dangerous form of ignorance, because it keeps us blind to the complexities that exist in the world where different viewpoints, developments and subjective experiences shape and inform the multiple perspectives of any given situation, issue, or experience. It is pride that keeps us locked away in a box of close-mindedness that leads us to a refusal to learn and understand things from a different and expanded perspective. I know that for me personally, it is pride that leads me to pretend that I know things when I do not, because I am too afraid to appear ignorant. However, at times when I have chosen to risk vulnerability in saying, “Sorry, I don’t know anything about that, could you tell me more?” I have experienced liberation of spirit - the burden of willful pride taken off my shoulders. So perhaps it is not ignorance in and of itself that is harmful to the fabric of our society, but rather, the pride within us that locks us up in our own jail cells of ignorance. As Benjamin Franklin said, “being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.”