Forever Knowing Nothing

This is the written description and elaboration of a metaphor that I thought of during October of 2010.

I like to think that we are all like puzzle pieces, except that I feel that we are pretty much shaped similar to the following artistic image, Figure A:

Now, there is a purpose with having a particular shape like this.  Most puzzle piece representations show a hole and a part that juts out on separate sides, so please note that there’s a purpose with having them both on the same side. 

Okay.  The best way I can present this is the way that I originally presented it to a resident in my house lounge who was talking about the fact that they hadn’t been to a party yet since they had gotten to college.  It was a Friday night and I had been joined by this person while drawing out all of the amino acids on the room’s giant white board.  I joked about how insane being a science major could be and left a note on the board for other residents to see that said “Good luck science majors!”  But when presented with this dilemma, I decided to firstly discuss my own opinion.  I joked by saying how, as an RA, that it was wonderful news to hear that someone hadn’t been to a party, but I could understand social frustration. 

I started off by saying that, to be cliché, the college experience is yours to define.  I noticed that it was viewed as an inherently “bad” thing that no party had been attended.  However, the college experience does not equate to partying or a quota of nights that you are supposed to be in an altered state of consciousness.  It is my desire that I remember my college years and I told this person that it’s merely an aspect of college you can involve yourself in, not one that you are supposed to be in.  I expressed that what I most wanted to remember about my “college years” was not how much I couldn’t remember, but how much hard work I put in to get myself to where I wanted to be.  Your younger years are spent creating the potential that you spend the rest of your life fulfilling.  I said I wanted to maximize my potential and that you can still enjoy yourself by taking that route. 

To move on, however, I wanted them to know that the lack of a partying lifestyle does not make them unattractive or give grounds for ostracization.   I then proceeded to draw the above puzzle piece on the wall’s white board. 

I told them that we are all this puzzle piece.  The larger part of the square represents our value, significance, identity, place, and substance.  We all have it, and that part doesn’t really have different size for any of us.  We all have the same worth and significance and no one has more than another.

Then I covered up the part that sticks out of the square.  I presented the piece as a square with a hole.  The hole is what we all feel we lack.  It could be anything.  Whatever we feel is either missing in our life or missing in ourselves is what is represented by the hole.  Any and all problems we have with where we are, who we are, what we are, they are seen as missing something that would otherwise make us be where we want to be, who we want to be, or what we want to be.  Every single person dwells on this.  We spend our thoughts, time, energy, and lives trying to find a way to fill in this hole that represents our insecurities.  But I told this person that we don’t want to fill in this hole, proceeding to draw a line to fill it, because then you’d just be a square.  No one wants to be a square! 

Lame joke aside, my main point was this:  We spend so much of our energy focusing on that hole that we don’t realize that we do have something to offer to other people, the piece that juts out.  That part is what people refer to when they say everyone is “special.” Everyone has substance and everyone has all the usual stuff, but only you have a certain combination of attributes and strengths and even weaknesses (which can be beneficial) that make a perfectly unique mixture that exists in the form of this piece.  We all have something very important to offer to other people and we need to think more about what we are instead of what we aren’t. 

After I had this discussion, I awoke the next morning to a drawing of the very same puzzle piece I had used on my door’s white board.  It had the phrase “Good luck science major,” next to it with a heart drawn in the part that jutted out.  My self-interpretation is that they were trying to say that what I had to offer was love. 

I accept it, but only if I can give it as well.