The Rubix Cube Part 2: Back to the Future

Ok, if we can't solve this thing on our own, what's the fucking point?

Time to cheat.  That's right, cheat.  If our ancestors are good for anything, they are good for a few hints and shortcuts.  We can learn from their wisdom.  We must follow the path. 

Using the written directions included, it took me around six hours to solve the Cube for the first time.  It was confusing and frustrating, and I didn't actually believe the directions would work until the final few turns of the cube.  It took me about 45 minutes the second time, and about 30 minutes the third.  

Go and do this.  See how long it takes you.  

What you will realize is that even with the written directions, solving the Cube is still an extremely difficult endeavor, SO difficult that most people can not or simply WILL NOT solve the Cube.  Try to imagine the excuses they make for giving up, even with the solution right in front of them:

"The directions are bullshit, this is stupid, what's the point, it's broken, I'm stupid, it's a waste of time, this is a joke, it's impossible, I'm too tired, only a moron would waste time on this, it's just too difficult, I'm no good at math, I'm not going to let this ruin my day, I give up, I've got more important things to do, the directions are wrong"

Don't judge them, rather, try to recognize situations in your own life where you may have used the same excuses.

After you have solved the Cube, try to solve the Cube again, but in half the time.  Then commit the process to memory, and solve it without the training wheels.  Then with the pressure of an audience.  Challenge yourself to become quicker, faster.

Congratulations!  You can now solve the Rubix Cube. 

When I say You, I mean Robot.  A Robot solved the Cube.

Please, do not kid yourself that you have done anything more than install the Rubix Cube Solution program in your brain.  Or did you forget?

We cheated.  We took the shortcut.  

The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoor-denenthurnuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later

on life down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of the

offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan, erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself promptly sends an unquiring one well to the west 

in quest of his tumptytumtoes: and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park

where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since devlinsfirst loved livvy.

James Joyce

Joyce recognized that this is what was happening with language and history.  McLuhan understood Joyce, and recognized that this was happening with literacy and media as well.  Kubrick understood them both, and recognized that this was no accident.

The Rubix Cube: Gone in Ninety Three Seconds

I just bought a Rubix Cube. When I opened up the box it came in,  I marveled at how elegant a simple piece of plastic could be.  Elegant, yet surprisingly loud, as all six colors shouted for individual attention.

And fragile.

The untouched Cube is a very Zen object.  It reflects all six senses, forever entangled, but never as pure as this.  A newborn, a child, a virgin.

I'm 36, and I had one of these Cubes when I was 5 years old.  As I examine this identical Cube three decades later, I try to consider the Cube from the perspective of a child who finds one sitting anonymously on a shelf surrounded by other toys, toys that shout and rattle and beckon for attention.  What could possibly attract the child to the Cube?

Boredom clears a path to this cube.  Boredom destroys this inertia.

"What does it do?  What is it for?  What just happened?"

In less than sixty seconds, the singularity of the Cube will dissolve at the hands of the child, its Zen-like purity hopelessly lost into one of the 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different permutations.  That's "quintillion".

The child will never bring the Cube back to the way it was.  Decades later, the child may never believe that it was ever possible to begin with.

Buy a Rubix Cube today, and see how long it takes before you fuck it up.  Before you are completely and utterly LOST.  Without cheating, without reading a book of directions, and without watching a video on YouTube, try to bring all six sides back to that original star, that one in a quintillion singularity.  Siriusly, find your way back.  To your Home.

But at least you know this time.  You know for certain that somewhere in the endlessly mutating pattern is that solid state six colored cube, that singularity, that newborn that you started with at the beginning.  How could you forget?  You just fucking had it right there, just a god damn minute ago.  Where did it go?

Ask yourself, "Am I up to it?"

 Can you meet the challenge of restoring the Cube?  Because what you have here is a Sword in a Stone.  This, this is the challenge of Isis, and the wound of Amfortas.  This is the mystery of Resurrection.

If you let it, this $8.99 Cube can be a mirror for your mind, and for what the human mind is capable of.  It can be a mirror for the Robot mind, and for what the Robot mind is capable of.  It can be a canvas for the Artist, and an instrument of deception.

What do you see?  What can you see? Who do you see?

What are you going to do?