I, along with millions of other people around the world today, embarked upon the journey laid out for us by the infamous Will Shortz. That dastardly man of puzzles must know how he is toying with us, raising our self-esteem with Monday puzzles only to dash our thoughts of an uncanny mental ability with his evil Sunday's. The New York Times crossword puzzle is a welcome challenge day in and day out, success or not. But why? I rarely finish them fully and if I do there is no congratulatory party with offers of cake and champagne. So why do we like puzzles? What satisfaction do they give us and in what other forms do they exist? Is it possible that in turning every minute challenge into a puzzle we can go at its completion with a more dogged sense of dedication? Is there a puzzle to everything?
Looking back on all those math and science classes I trenched my way through I realize now just what those mindless problems offered: answers. In my academic pursuits ever after I never got to deal with answer, only questions. In the humanities we deal with ideas and there is no fact or truth to ideas, they are merely whims as transparent as the wind and as fleeting. But when you complete a math or physics problem you are either right or wrong, there is no in between. The left hand side of the equation must in the end match the right side. The puzzle is the same way. And upon completion there is a sense of success that can't be substituted. In every paper I've ever written there has never been a comparable endpoint, my grade and the success of the paper is entirely dependent on its ability to persuade the audience. The success of an idea is its ability to impress others, the success of a puzzle is quantitative. There is definitely a luxury to knowing absolutely that you are right.
Is that the only reason drawing us to puzzles? Or are we also intrigued by the process? The linearity of proofs. Is it universal that we like logic? Is it that we like getting from A to Z or do we just like knowing definitively there is a route that exists which will take us there?
