Wednesday November 18 2020.
As predicted, COVID is hitting back hard across the country now that the colder weather has set in. People are indoors more, breathing on each other, spreading the virus. Because of this surge, many states across the country are reintroducing lock down measures to try to stop the surge. Thanksgiving is coming up next week, the most important day of any American year in regards to family get togethers, and although states are telling everybody to stay home ant NOT have family gatherings this year, everybody is holding their breaths because despite the health mandates, of course a lot of people will have large family gatherings, and two weeks later we will have 10s of thousands of old people die as a result, crowding the hospitals, and leading to a social crisis that nobody wants to happen.
Of course the virus is still a political issue, thanks to Trump, so all Red states and counties are ignoring safety precautions, for no other reason than to fight the liberals, which leads to the virus's further spread. Coos County where I live in Oregon is a case in point. While Oregon is Blue, Coos County is very very red. Lots of obstinate combative people here.
Jana made a great "female sexual empowerment" drawing back at the end of July when she visited and we ordered a high quality 1,000 piece puzzle out of it from some company online.
I got myself into a bit of a tangle online this past week because I commented on the NextDoor website how the bars are still filled with people not practicing safe social distancing or even wearing masks. This led to some ugly responses back at me. One woman correctly responded though that this all boils down to Old Oregon (Red) vs New Oregon (Blue). Old Oregon will die gasping of the virus, while still insisting it is all a hoax. Crazy. Call the virus a hoax, go to a bar and drink with your buddies, then have thanksgiving with grandma then watch her die as a result. dumb as bricks.
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I managed to put all the border pieces together the first week, because that is always the easy part, but it was mostly a line drawing so pretty much impossible for me to figure out how to put together, with all the lines looking alike at first glance. I was at at stalemate with it. And so the puzzle sat on my table for four months. The border done, and all the other pieces scattered about.
Then about 3 weeks ago, I decided to either put it away, or just man up and get serious and try to figure it out.
This leads to my life theory that that every problem in its very essense is telling you how to solve it if you just sit and stare at it long enough.
I have countless examples from my life in which I was faced with a problem that was quite obviously way over my head, yet I was eventually able to crack it by just paying enough attention to it and being patient with it. With the process of letting it tell me what was needed. This was hugely true in terms of my programming career, where new coding paradigms would be presented every five years or so. It was always at first impossible to make the leap to the new paradigm until I eventually decided to spend time with it and let it talk to me. Every problem wants to reveal its secrets within if you are patient enough with it.
Anyway the puzzle was the same way. Eventually I learned that I could not approach it like other puzzles, but by working much slower with the pieces and looking at basic shapes. Then it was a matter of 3 weeks or so until I got it put together. Just a little bit every day. I am rather satisfied now with the success.
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Now that the new lockdowns are in place, I might start writing in this thing again. My life may go back to walks and writing, a la the initial lockdowns back in March.
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