“Oh! I just can’t finish putting together the map of our first journey! It’s so exciting to look back at where we’ve been, to remember who we met… And I still can’t complete the puzzle! There are just a few pieces left, and they simply refuse to fit into their places. I move them around and around, but nothing works. Why? And honestly, puzzles feel a bit boring to me – you sit there, stare at the pieces, move them around, and they just won’t listen. When will I finally be able to see our map?” – burst out the Little Book Bird in a single breath, landing in the Wise Owl’s tree.
“It would be much better if the Author came up with something like… something you could just click – and it would assemble itself!” the Little Book Bird continued. “That would be so much faster!”
“But then there would be no meaning and no benefit in such a game,” the Wise Owl replied. “A puzzle is not made for rushing. It’s simply not that kind of game.”
“Then what kind is it? What’s the point?” asked the Little Book Bird.
“For me, online puzzles are valuable because they let you build something whole out of scattered pieces,” said the Wise Owl.
“You have many pieces, but no complete picture yet. So you sit, think, move the pieces – and try to find the right place for each one, until the whole image finally comes together. And then you feel happy that you managed to do it. At that moment, it hardly matters how much time it took. Over time, as you gain more experience, you can even challenge yourself – putting the puzzle together a little faster each time.”
“Puzzles have two particularly difficult moments,” the Wise Owl continued. “At the beginning, when nothing exists yet, and at the end, when only a few pieces are left and it’s hard to see where they belong. That’s when you really want to give up – or, as you say, just click and have everything assemble itself. But puzzles don’t like haste. When you slow down and look closely at the details, the whole picture appears on its own.”
“I see now: puzzles are not about speed,” the Little Book Bird sighed.
Then she added cheerfully, “But I’ll finish the puzzle anyway – I really want to see the map of our first journey!”