Image via Pixabay

Here’s another analogy, courtesy of a variety of things. Enjoy.

I’ve got a Rubik’s cube in my hands, and I’m raging at it.

I’ve been working at this puzzle for quite a while now and I still can’t seem to solve it! I see others work this thing like they made it, their fingers jumping around it expertly, spinning and stopping just so and making the colours match perfectly. How do they do that?!

I spin some blocks, flick them this way and that. I think ahead a few moves, and try to strategize. What if I try this? What if I do it this way? Nope. Nothin’. Zilch. Nada. Ugh.

I put it aside for a while and set it on a dusty shelf. It gathers a smidge of dust itself before I can’t help myself and take it up again. It’s like this infernal thing calls my name, begging me to solve it and make sense of it.

My hands move slower now as I try to solve it – yet again. I just want to make sense of the thing, but I don’t know how I should interact with it. It takes so much effort, and I’m finding it harder and harder to find the energy to try again and again.

I set it on the coffee table before me, my hand still on top of it even as I’m sitting on this couch.

No. You know what? Let’s do this. Yeah, okay.

It makes a scraping noise as I slide it off the wooden table and I begin to work at it in another frenzy, the cube clicking along with my brain.

I can do it this! Yes! It’s getting there, just one teensy square is out of place…

And it’s all messed up again.

I grip the cube so tightly my hands are shaking…

Why can’t I do it?! This is nuts! Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

I look up and across the room from myself, and I see a mirror reflecting the image of me slouched in this couch, along with tensed muscles, red-rimmed eyes and hands still gripping that cube, which is covered in black squares.

Why can’t I match the colours?!

With a cry, I hurl the cube towards the mirror.

Except it stops before it smashes the glass to pieces. A hand has caught it mid-flight.

I know that hand and the person it belongs to. He made the cube and knows how to solve it! Yes! He can solve it for me!

He’s examining it in His hands now and as I watch Him, I’m suddenly horrified to realize the cube I’ve been working on all this time is currently black with all the grime and dirt I’ve gotten all over it trying to solve it.

I groan and cover my face with my hands, then yank them away as I realize they’re also covered in the grime. I groan yet again as He chuckles, gesturing for me to lean closer, as He’s actually sitting right beside me on this couch. How did I miss that?

He takes my hand in His as I cringe at dirtying it, but when I open my eyes to see the result, I see that my hand is clean once again. He does the same with my other hand, still holding the cube, which I see He has also made clean. Now, the same colours that I had originally been trying to solve, are once more clear and bright.

The thought of trying to solve that ridiculous cube tosses my face back into my hands – with yet another groan. He chuckles again, His face gentle and smiling.

With a face soft towards me, He reaches over to the coffee table and pats a book. I look up at it.

Ah, right. That’s the guide for the cube. Kinda forgot about that in my focused rage.

And of course, there’s Him – the one who made the cube. And y’know, He’s been sitting here beside me the whole time, and I never once asked for help. How ridiculous is that?!

Yes. Ridiculous indeed.

I think it’s time to change that.

He places the cube back in my hands and continues to be beside me.

I flip open the guide in front of me, take a deep breath, glance over at Him, and start twisting and turning my cube.

This time, I’ve we’ve got this.

P.S. – I abhor Rubik’s cubes, and if I were ever to actually try and solve on, I just wouldn’t start. That’s how I solve them, though I do know other people with super-human abilities to bend them to their will. I don’t fully understand those people, but then again, there’s a lot of things I don’t fully understand. LLAP.