Springingtiger's Blog

I love logic puzzles, every night at work I take the Coffee Break pages of the Daily Mail and do puzzles. Before my first break I do the Sudokus, later – usually in the last hour of the shift – I do the Codeword, Scrabblegram and the Word Wheel. Sudoku, where one determines the placement of the numbers one to nine on grids according to rules is obviously an exercise in logic, the word puzzles less obviously so. However the English language has rules and the solution of the Codeword and Scrabblegram depends more on the application of an understanding of word construction than on the size of one’s vocabulary; the Word Wheel does rely more upon learned vocabulary, but the application of one’s understanding of word construction frequently provides a stimulus to memory.

My relationship with the world is largely that of trying to solve a puzzle with logic.I mentioned in “A Sense of Wonder” the difficulties presented to me by “The Princess Bride”. Although the narrative of the story was obviously fiction and the commentary was also fiction was fairly obvious, it escaped my attention that the prologue and additions in the Twenty-fifth anniversary addition were also fiction, at least until the remarks about Stephen King coming from Florin. I must admit I Googled S. Morganstern just to confirm the fiction. Unless I am given reason to believe otherwise I tend to take things at their face value, so it is very necessary for me to be able to apply tests to establish the veracity of information, but still I have severe difficulties.

(Today is not a good day, I am unable to separate the streams of information I am receiving. My depth perception is off, so while I knew cars were coming because I could see their headlights I could not cross the road as I was unable to gauge how far away they were. This is one of those days when I am hearing everything simultaneously, which makes it very difficult to understand what people are saying or to which voice I should listen. I hate it when my brain is foggy because I navigate this world by logic and when I can’t focus it’s hard to function, were it not for learned routines and sub-routines I would be totally lost. I hate it when none of the letters are where they should be and I have to type sentences again and again. Yesterday when I started this it was easy, but today is a struggle)

In theory logic should be enough to negotiate one’s way through life but logic is dependent upon premises and ascertaining the premises upon which upon which to base one’s reasoning is not always easy, when it comes to human behaviour it is nigh on impossible. I remember being very confused when my mother broke into tears on reading my ‘O’ level results, I thought I had done well so her tears caught me by surprise, but she was actually happy. No matter how well one thinks one has learned the rules there are so many exceptions that one can never feel secure in the company of strangers. I think it is – as a general rule – best to maintain a small repertoire of very bland and inoffensive responses to others rather than risk entering into the banter that occurs within social groups, particularly when this involves terminology that in some circumstances may be considered insulting. It is also better to avoid conversation as a forthright opinion may cause offense, indeed revealing information can often be problematic as there always seems to be someone trying to keep something a secret and they assume that everyone will know not to be open and honest. Much of the time my family avoid giving me information because they know that if asked a question I will answer it honestly. I go through life with the feeling that there is a key that will make sense of everything if I could just find it, until I do I shall just have to continue to work things out as best I can.