There once was a man that tried to teach me how to solve a Rubik’s cube. I was not receptive. Years later, I do not know what sparked me to pick one up. But I did. Many youtube videos, colored sketches, and google searches later, I taught myself how to solve one. At first, each algorithm was an enormous feat. I was afraid to proceed to the next because of messing up the levels I had already solved, (with much help from the university of YouTube). Eventually, I was solving time after time. Without lubricant, the squares began to loosen themselves up. My record time is a little over 90 seconds. And that is nothing in the world of speed solving.
I am currently flunking the only math course I need to stay in school. I am not a mathematician in any way (despite being attracted to it as a universal language), but the way I view the cube is through language, color, and movement. Something about it feels analogous to the world of fine art and communication. I am not my own puzzle, but sometimes the experiences I go through feel like a never-ending sequence of algorithms that I am desperately trying to acclimate myself to.
I’ve solved this children’s toy I don’t know how many times. I love to whip it out to show off because so many people tend to project lack of understanding onto nothing more than stack of 27 colorful cubes. What I have found from solving something I have no real business solving other than to rub it in other people's faces, is that the cube is not what's complicated. It's the human mind that is complicated.
It’s not the feeling of solving it for people or even for me in my own time, that I love. It’s all that nonsense in the middle: the time and the journey that changes each time. The thing I’ve always loved most about the Rubik’s cube is that you build from the centerpieces first, then onto the edges. My only advice to solving one is to keep in mind: the first algorithm I ever memorized, is the same as the last.
That's the only technical thing I keep in mind when solving it. The rest is out the window.
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