Jigsaw Sayings And Quotes

On Writing: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays 1. A beginning ends what an end begins. 2. The despair of the blank page: it is so full. 3. In the head Art’s not democratic. I wait a long time to be a writer good enough even for myself. 4. The best time is stolen time. 5. All work is the avoidance of harder work. 6. When I am trying to write I turn on music so I can hear what is keeping me from hearing. 7. I envy music for being beyond words. But then, every word is beyond music. 8. Why would we write if we’d already heard what we wanted to hear? 9. The poem in the quarterly is sure to fail within two lines: flaccid, rhythmless, hopelessly dutiful. But I read poets from strange languages with freedom and pleasure because I can believe in all that has been lost in translation. Though all works, all acts, all languages are already translation. 10. Writer: how books read each other. 11. Idolaters of the great need to believe that what they love cannot fail them, adorers of camp, kitsch, trash that they cannot fail what they love. 12. If I didn’t spend so much time writing, I’d know a lot more. But I wouldn’t know anything. 13. If you’re Larkin or Bishop, one book a decade is enough. If you’re not? More than enough. 14. Writing is like washing windows in the sun. With every attempt to perfect clarity you make a new smear. 15. There are silences harder to take back than words. 16. Opacity gives way. Transparency is the mystery. 17. I need a much greater vocabulary to talk to you than to talk to myself. 18. Only half of writing is saying what you mean. The other half is preventing people from reading what they expected you to mean. 19. Believe stupid praise, deserve stupid criticism. 20. Writing a book is like doing a huge jigsaw puzzle, unendurably slow at first, almost self-propelled at the end. Actually, it’s more like doing a puzzle from a box in which several puzzles have been mixed. Starting out, you can’t tell whether a piece belongs to the puzzle at hand, or one you’ve already done, or will do in ten years, or will never do. 21. Minds go from intuition to articulation to self-defense, which is what they die of. 22. The dead are still writing. Every morning, somewhere, is a line, a passage, a whole book you are sure wasn’t there yesterday. 23. To feel an end is to discover that there had been a beginning. A parenthesis closes that we hadn’t realized was open). 24. There, all along, was what you wanted to say. But this is not what you wanted, is it, to have said it?

Parents and children. The simplest relationship in the world and yet the most complex. One generation passes to the next a suitcase filled with jumbled jigsaw pieces from countless puzzles collected over time and says, ‘See what you can make out of these.

But who can say why two people become a couple, that small principality of mutual protection and regard? Couples are jigsaw puzzles that hang together by touching in just enough points.

Listen very carefully... listen to everyone and don't say much and think about what they say and how they say it and watch their eyes... it becomes like a big jigsaw, but you're the only one who can see all the pieces. You'll know what they want you to know, and what they don't want you to know, and even what they think no one knows.

We all behave like Maxwell’s demon. Organisms organize. In everyday experience lies the reason sober physicists across two centuries kept this cartoon fantasy alive. We sort the mail, build sand castles, solve jigsaw puzzles, separate wheat from chaff, rearrange chess pieces, collect stamps, alphabetize books, create symmetry, compose sonnets and sonatas, and put our rooms in order, and all this we do requires no great energy, as long as we can apply intelligence. We propagate structure (not just we humans but we who are alive). We disturb the tendency toward equilibrium. It would be absurd to attempt a thermodynamic accounting for such processes, but it is not absurd to say we are reducing entropy, piece by piece. Bit by bit. The original demon, discerning one molecules at a time, distinguishing fast from slow, and operating his little gateway, is sometimes described as “superintelligent,” but compared to a real organism it is an idiot savant. Not only do living things lessen the disorder in their environments; they are in themselves, their skeletons and their flesh, vesicles and membranes, shells and carapaces, leaves and blossoms, circulatory systems and metabolic pathways - miracles of pattern and structure. It sometimes seems as if curbing entropy is our quixotic purpose in the universe.

Parents and children. The simplest relationship in the world and yet the most complex. One generation passes to the next a suitcase filled with jumbled jigsaw pieces from countless puzzles collected over time and says, “See what you can make out of these.

He had never once felt itchy, in the way that two connecting pieces of a jigsaw never felt itchy, as far as one could tell. If one were to imagine, for the sake of argument, that jigsaw pieces had thoughts and feelings, then it was possible to imagine them saying to themselves, 'I'm going to stay here. Where else would I go?' And if another jigsaw piece came along, offering its tabs and blanks enticingly in an attempt to lure one of the pieces away, it would be easy to resist temptation. 'Look,' the object of the seducer's admiration would say. 'You're a bit of telephone box, and I'm the face of Mary, Queen of Scots. We just wouldn't look right together.' And that would be that.

This was it, the big moment: the corpse of his chief enemy, the ruins of his creator, the body of his dead father; the great weight of all that was unsaid and would never have been said; the pressure to say it now, when there was nobody to hear, and to speak also on his father's behalf, in an act of self-division that might fissure the world and turn his body into a jigsaw puzzle. This was it.

I wanna make a jigsaw puzzle that's 40,000 pieces. And when you finish it, it says, 'go outside'.

If he says something that isn’t true, he is bringing uncertainty into the world. He is blinding the people around him to a small part of the truth—and every part of the truth is important. You can’t complete a jigsaw if one of its pieces has been swapped out for a piece of a different jigsaw.

You will likely hear participants say such things as, “So that’s what you did?” “Oh, I forgot about that.” “So, when you did that, that’s when I did this. Now it makes sense.” Like a jigsaw puzzle that had been scattered with pieces missing, it all begins to come together as everyone adds their one or two pieces.

I always find it odd when people say that of the dead. They had their whole life ahead of them. Clearly, they didn't because they're dead. We may not like the method of disposal but when it's your time to go, then it's your time to go.

Pages could be written on the immense losses of productive soil that occur annually in almost every continent of the earth; on lethal air pollution episodes in major urban areas; on the worldwide distribution of toxic agents, such as radioactive isotopes and lead; on the chemicalization of man's immediate environment—one might say his very dinner table—with pesticide residues and food additives. Pieced together like bits of a jigsaw puzzle, these affronts to the environment form a pattern of destruction that has no precedent in man's long history on earth.

We normally meet in the Jigsaw Room, you see,’ says Joyce. ‘But it’s not Thursday and the Jigsaw Room is being used by Chat and Crochet.’ ‘Chat and Crochet is a fairly new group, Detective Chief Inspector,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Formed by members who had become disillusioned with Knit and Natter. Too much nattering and not enough knitting, apparently.

I wanna make a jigsaw puzzle that's 40, 000 pieces. When you finish it, it says 'go outside'.

I say sister because we were never too alike, too competitive with one another, ever to bond as friends: like the projecting pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, our characters, by reason of their similar cuts, could never really lock.

Parent and Teacher Actions: 1. Ask children what their role models would do. Children feel free to take initiative when they look at problems through the eyes of originals. Ask children what they would like to improve in their family or school. Then have them identify a real person or fictional character they admire for being unusually creative and inventive. What would that person do in this situation? 2. Link good behaviors to moral character. Many parents and teachers praise helpful actions, but children are more generous when they’re commended for being helpful people—it becomes part of their identity. If you see a child do something good, try saying, “You’re a good person because you ___.” Children are also more ethical when they’re asked to be moral people—they want to earn the identity. If you want a child to share a toy, instead of asking, “Will you share?” ask, “Will you be a sharer?” 3. Explain how bad behaviors have consequences for others. When children misbehave, help them see how their actions hurt other people. “How do you think this made her feel?” As they consider the negative impact on others, children begin to feel empathy and guilt, which strengthens their motivation to right the wrong—and to avoid the action in the future. 4. Emphasize values over rules. Rules set limits that teach children to adopt a fixed view of the world. Values encourage children to internalize principles for themselves. When you talk about standards, like the parents of the Holocaust rescuers, describe why certain ideals matter to you and ask children why they’re important. 5. Create novel niches for children to pursue. Just as laterborns sought out more original niches when conventional ones were closed to them, there are ways to help children carve out niches. One of my favorite techniques is the Jigsaw Classroom: bring students together for a group project, and assign each of them a unique part. For example, when writing a book report on Eleanor Roosevelt’s life, one student worked on her childhood, another on her teenage years, and a third on her role in the women’s movement. Research shows that this reduces prejudice—children learn to value each other’s distinctive strengths. It can also give them the space to consider original ideas instead of falling victim to groupthink. To further enhance the opportunity for novel thinking, ask children to consider a different frame of reference. How would Roosevelt’s childhood have been different if she grew up in China? What battles would she have chosen to fight there?

But is the timing of a thing supposed to be everything? I do, I do want all my ends and beginnings to be with you. But are you supposed to be one brick in the wall of my life and not the brick that completes it? Are you supposed to be one chapter in my book and the insignificant corner of my jigsaw puzzle? Did you and I collapse into each other for this one big pool of tears? Or is there more to it? I still think we could make the world a better place together and be strong for each other, and go till the ends of the world with each other. But at what cost? Please don't say at the cost of our peace. Because that's when you will give up and that's when you'll break my heart.

God, yes. Please kiss me.” He does slam into me then. Half lifting me to press me into the hallway wall, whooshing the breath from my body and his lips at first travel along the pulse in my throat and move up to steal the breath out of me. We kiss as though it’s all we want to do in the world. His taste blooms through me, jig-sawing his lust to my own until I can’t see through the arousal I feel for him. We’re panting when we part, but not too far. My fingers in his hair restrict him from moving from my mouth and I moan for more. He grins at my neediness. “Do you have a preference, cara, bed or the couch in the den?” I blink. Assaulted with his scent, it’s a wonder I still know my own name having him this close. Gabriella. See, I do know it. “What?” “You’re right,” he says with a grunt to his tone, striding off with me in his arms and he takes a swift left and down another hallway before climbing his townhouse stairs two at a time to the next level. “The bed is more spacious; I need room for what I want to do to you. We’ll get around to the couch when I don’t want to fucking eat you alive.” Oh Oh. My whole being flatlines. “Dominic.” I sound like one of those breathy hussies, but I can’t help it. With a few words and the way his two hands are squeezing my butt, I’m on fire for him. He rushes his mouth against my neck, striding down a long white hallway upstairs. “I know, cara. I fucking know, hold on for a minute more.

If we shuffle three colored quarks and the equations remain the same, then we say that the equations possess something called SU(3) symmetry. The 3 represents the fact that we have three types of colors, and the SU stands for a specific mathematical property of the symmetry. We say that there are three quarks in a multiplet. The quarks in a multiplet can be shuffled among one another without changing the physics of the theory. Similarly, the weak force governs the properties of two particles, the electron and the neutrino. The symmetry that interchanges these particles, yet leaves the equation the same, is called SU(2). This means that a multiplet of the weak force contains an electron and a neutrino, which can be rotated into each other. Finally, the electromagnetic force has U(1) symmetry, which rotates the components of the Maxwell field into itself. Each of these symmetries is simple and elegant. However, the most controversial aspect of the Standard Model is that it "unifies" the three fundamental forces by simply splicing all three theories into one large symmetry. SU(3) X SU(2) X U(1), which is just the product of the symmetries of the individual forces. (This can be compared to assembling a jigsaw puzzle. If we have three jigsaw pieces that don't quite fit, we can always take Scotch tape and splice them together by hand. This is how the Standard Model is formed, by taping three distinct multiplets together. This may not be aesthetically pleasing, but at least the three jigsaw puzzles now hang together by tape.) Ideally, one might have expected that "the ultimate theory" would have all the particles inside just a single multiplet. Unfortunately, the Standard Model has three distinct multiplets, which cannot be rotated among one another.

The perfect girl what can I say; to be so close yet, feel miles away. I want to run to her, but have to walk out the door going the other way. The only words spoken to her are- ‘Have a nice day.’ I think about her and the summer, and what it could have been with her. It reminds me of- sixteen, you are on my mind all the time. I think about you. It is like a vision of the stars shining, ribbon wearing, bracelet making, and holding hands forever. All the sunflowers in the hayfields and kissing in the rain, no more brick walls, no more falling teardrops of pain, and no more jigsaw puzzle pieces would remain. True love should not be such a game; does she feel the same. She is everything that I cannot have, and everything I lack. What if every day could be like this- Diamond rings, football games, and movies on the weekends? It is easy to see she belongs to me; she is everything that reminds me of ‘sixteen’ everything that is in my dreams. Everything she does is amazing, but then again, I am just speculating, and fantasizing about Nevaeh Natalie, who just turned the age of sixteen! Nevaeh- I recall my first boy kiss was not at all, what I thought it was going to be like. I was wearing a light pink dress, and flip-flops that were also pink with white daisy flowers printed on them. I loosened my ponytail and flipped out my hair until my hair dropped down my back, and around my shoulders. That gets A guy going every time, so I have read online. He was wearing ripped-up jeans and a Led Zeppelin t-shirt. He said that- ‘My eyes sparkled in blue amazement, which was breathtaking, that he never saw before.’ Tell me another line… I was thinking, while Phil Collins ‘Take Me Home’ was playing in the background. I smiled at him, he began to slowly lean into me, until our lips locked. So, enjoy, he kissed me, and my heart was all aflutter. When it happened, I felt like I was floating, and my stomach had butterflies. My eyes fastened shut with no intentions of me doing so during the whole thing. When my eyes unfastened my feelings of touch engaged, and I realized that his hands are on my hips. His hands slowly moved up my waist, and my body. I was trembling from the exhilaration. Plus, one thing led to another. It was sort of my first time, kissing and playing with him you know a boy, oh yet not really, I had gotten to do some things with Chiaz before like, in class as he sat next to me. I would rub my hand on it under the desks- yeah, he liked that, and he would be. Oh, how could I forget this… there was this one time in the front seat of his Ford pickup truck, we snuck off… and this was my first true time gulping down on him, for a lack of a better term. As I had my head in his lap and was about to move up for him to go in me down there, I was about to get on top and let him in me. When we both heard her this odd, yet remarkably loud scream of bloody murder! Ava was saying- ‘You too were going to fuck! What the fuck is going on here? Anyways, Ava spotted us before he got to ‘Take me!

They say home is where the heart is, although in my case, the location of the fridge is also important.

Then countries—your invention—maps jigsawing the world into colored shapes caged in bold lines to say: you’re here, not there, you’re this, not that, to say: yellow isn’t red, red isn’t black, black is not white, to say: mine, not ours, to say war, and believe life’s worth is relative.

I stare at Finlay and he stares back. We’re both fixed on each other, and as seconds pass, I realize neither of us is trying to pretend it’s anything other than a heart-struck gaze of mutual longing. Everything about his face is so ridiculously, staggeringly lovely to me, in this moment, I’m unable to speak. Beauty isn’t an arrangement of features, even features as perfect as Finlay Hart’s, it’s a feeling. This is how it feels in the split second you suddenly become aware that you’re falling in love with someone. The click of a jigsaw’s last piece, the rainfall of coins in a jackpot slot machine, the right song striking up and your being swept away by its opening bars. That conviction of making complete sense of the universe, in one moment. Of course. You’re where I should be. You’re here. “How are you?” Fin says to me, eventually, and we both break into broad smiles at the ludicrousness of having declared our feelings without saying a word. I can’t wait to talk to him properly, after we leave here. I can’t wait, full stop.

I hit Ledger. “Shut up and stop repeating him, Hazen.” “Was it good, though?” Jigsaw asks, lifting his head. I snort, turning over. “I never tell you guys if your sex is good or bad.” It’s silent before all hell breaks loose. Ledger and Ryker confidently keep saying

they are the best. Hazen worries he is terrible now, while Jigsaw wants to be rated. “Oh, my devils! You guys will get us kicked out. Stop it.” It’s silent again before Hazen asks, “So… Ozias is next? I like him.” “So, fuck him yourself,” I mutter into Ryker’s chest. “Maybe I will. He won’t say I’m horrible.” “I never said that.” I giggle, standing and jumping right on Hazen. He expects it, wrapping himself around me. “Damn, I don’t have wings to use to fuck you with,” Hazen mutters. “Sky sex sounds dangerous,” Jigsaw mutters, turning over. “Yeah, because your cum would burn people below.” Ledger snorts. I giggle, touching Jigsaw’s back as he laughs.

. In an instant the pieces of a jigsaw I’ve seen too many times click into place. She’s been raised in one of those fae households. Where they still hold the traditional values. Where they say they want change but what they actually want is for things to stay the same because it’s always been done that way and that’s proof it works.

This is how it worked: Students were divided into groups of five or six. When a class began a new unit—say, on the life of Eleanor Roosevelt—each student in the group was assigned one section of the material: Roosevelt’s childhood and young adulthood, or her role as first lady, or her work on behalf of causes such as civil rights and world peace. The students’ task was to master their own section, then rejoin the group and report to the others on what they had learned. “Each student has possession of a unique and vital part of the information, which, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, must be put together before anyone can learn the whole picture,” Aronson explained. By arranging instruction in this manner, he was effectively creating a transactive memory system on the spot, turning each student into an expert on a particular facet of the subject under study. “In this situation,” Aronson added, “the only way a child can be a good learner is to begin to be a good listener and interviewer”; the jigsaw structure “demands that the students utilize one another as resources.

Jobs I Have Had (cont’d): I once demonstrated fill-in painting at a ten-cent store. I would gather a crowd around me and take out my Sylvan Scene Number 10 cardboard with its jigsaw of shapes, all numbered. For about three minutes, I would do my cyborgian routine, showing the shoppers how to put bleeding-gum crimson in all the 5’ s—never in a 7 or a 2. Then, all of a sudden, I would go crazy. I could not bring myself to stay within the lines. My blind-man blue would stray from the 52-to-75 lower-sky section, where it belonged, and would begin to invade the cavity yellow of the 45-to-48 cloud tinge. But the management kept me on. They merely warned against sloppiness, saying prissily, “Neatness counts, neatness counts.

He talked about the trappings of the White House, saying something to the effect of “This is luxury. And I know luxury.” I remember glancing again at the one poor statue I could see over his shoulder with the mantelpiece on its head and thinking that made sense. He went into another explanation—I’d seen many of them on television—about how he hadn’t made fun of a disabled reporter. He said he hadn’t mistreated a long list of women, reviewing each case in detail, as he had in our earlier conversation. There was no way he groped that lady sitting next to him on the airplane, he insisted. And the idea that he grabbed a porn star and offered her money to come to his room was preposterous. His method of speaking was like an oral jigsaw puzzle contest, with a shot clock. He would, in rapid-fire sequence, pick up a piece, put it down, pick up an unrelated piece, put it down, return to the original piece, on and on. But it was always him picking up the pieces and putting them down. None of this behavior, incidentally, was the way a leader could or should build rapport with a subordinate.

A great transition, a great transformation, is on the way, which for us will be like the transformation from childhood to mature adult life, the transition from peering into a smoky mirror to seeing someone face to face, the shift from glimpsing parts of a jigsaw puzzle but having no idea how they fit together to seeing the whole thing, complete, at a single glance - or, to match more exactly what Paul says, from glimpsing parts of the puzzle to realizing that the Puzzle is not only complete but is looking back at us.

We normally meet in the Jigsaw Room, you see,” says Joyce. “But it’s not Thursday, and the Jigsaw Room is being used by Chat and Crochet.” “Chat and Crochet is a fairly new group, Detective Chief Inspector,” says Ibrahim.

says, Yeah, I’ve been here before, I’ve got this, don’t worry about it. When they were kids doing jigsaw puzzles, he knew where a piece went the instant he picked it up; when Kitty found a knot in the chain of a necklace, she would bring it to Cooper and he would methodically untangle it. Mallory, however, is a brand-new soul, squeaky clean, fresh out of the box, like a pair of penny loafers that needs, desperately, to be broken in. She has always had a difficult time seeing the big picture.

I see erasers as a guiding symbol for my life: Embrace the Way of the Eraser. As the saying goes, “Everyone makes mistakes. That’s why there is an eraser on the end of every pencil

He says we need to think more like engineers and less like lawyers, because engineers look for solutions, while lawyers look for evidence that reinforces their side.

I tell him that such stories make me nervous for the future in the face of advances in AI. Garry shakes his head. “I’m more optimistic about the future of humanity,” he says. “You’re not worried about AI taking over?” “Why should I be? I was the first knowledge worker whose job was threatened by machines,” he says. I laugh. It’s true. In 1997, Garry was famously beaten in a chess match by IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue. “I think it’s wrong to cry about progress,” he says. “The future is not humans fighting machines. The future is humans collaborating with machines. Every technology in history destroyed jobs, but it also created new ones.

As I mentioned: devious. I ask Peter why he thinks people—he, I, and millions of others—are so addicted to crosswords. “Well, life is a puzzle,” he says. “Who should you marry? That’s a puzzle. What job should you take? That’s a puzzle. With those puzzles, it’s hard to know if you got the best answer. But with crosswords, there is one correct answer. So that’s comforting.” I nod: puzzles provide a level of certainty you don’t get in this confusing real world. It’s a solid theory, though not the only one, as I’ll discuss next chapter.

I understood, suddenly, that everything was connected. The choices I’d made in the life I’d built. The things I remembered and the things I could not bear to remember. In a flash, all the pieces snapped together, and not just the memories themselves but the significance of them; that is, why they mattered. It clicked into place, crisply, like parts that were designed to interlock. A jigsaw puzzle took shape over my head, an awareness fusing, the way people say something can suddenly dawn on you, as if I’d had the corner pieces assembled but not the full contents of the puzzle, and I had turned a little pile of cardboard fragments into a clear picture for the first time. Now it all made sense. I understood why there were things that I had remembered for so many years, that I had seen constantly, running on a track through my mind.

People have shapes.All we do and say and think and believe cuts outlines around us like a jigsaw.And sometimes, you run into a person who seems to fit right beside you in the picture.Someone who sticks out where you dent in and zigs where you zag.

Mister, I’m not for sale,’ I say. ‘Never was, never have been, never will be.’ ‘Everyone has a price, young lady.’ ‘What’s yours?’ I reply.

Outnumbered and outmanoeuvred by fools! So be it. On one condition – the minute your eggs start to unscramble, the three of you are going to say loud and clear, under my direction: ‘Cobra told us not to do this, but did we listen? Hell no!ʼ

The proceedings of these ecumenical councils remind me of the experience of sitting down at a table before a large, thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. Many of us know how frustrating it can be to keep trying piece after piece that looks like it should fit, but it doesn’t. I have even been guilty of trying to force a piece into the wrong space, even though I know only one will be a true fit. Eventually, I find the proper puzzle piece that provides an exact fit. Likewise, the delegates to the Council of Nicea and the Council of Chalcedon were seeking to be faithful to the hundreds of Christological “pieces” found in the texts of Scriptures. It was their unenviable task to put the whole “picture” of Christ together for the very first time in such a way as to find a perfect match for every piece. At times, various groups presented “pieces” they believed were a proper fit regarding the humanity or deity or natures or wills of Christ, but, in the end, each was declared to be improper fits. The proceedings of these councils did more to declare which pieces were not true pieces of the puzzle and should be discarded, than to provide a final, definitive statement of Christology that would silence all future discussions. We may know that the “Arius,” “Nestorius,” and “Eutyches” pieces do not fit the Christological puzzle, but this is not to say that a final and complete picture emerged.

You said yourself that I seemed happy,” I tell her. “But why are you?” It’s a good question. How can I be happy when the clasp on my clarinet case actually creaks from lack of use? How can I be happy when I flubbed a basic scale this week in band, my fingers correcting automatically, but not before Charity’s eyes made a quick dash in my direction, noting the mistake? How can I be happy when my boyfriend and my lover are two different people? “Because I’m two different people,” I say, answering myself aloud, feeling the jigsaw of my new life click together. I’m a puzzle, definitely. But not the kind that lies flat on the table waiting for someone to piece it together. My broken bits have flurried through the air of their own volition, creating in three dimensions. And I don’t need finishing.

Hold the phone,” I said. “I just want to finish this puzzle.” I had only six pieces left. Stringbean looked around. “What phone?” “There’s no phone,” I said. “I just need another minute of quiet.” “So how can I hold the phone?” he asked. “It’s just an expression,” I said. “Like ‘you’re pulling my leg.’” Stringbean lifted an eyebrow. “I never touched your leg!” “I never said you touched my leg,” I replied. “You just did!” Stringbean explained. “You said I was pulling it.” “That’s not what I meant,” I stated. “Then why’d you say it?” Stringbean muttered. Oh brother. I scratched the back of my neck. “Let’s try this again,” I said carefully. “I was only using an expression--a saying. Do you know what that is?” Stringbean’s face was as blank as a brick wall. I took that as a no. “Imagine I told you to put the lights out,” I said. “Would you take the lightbulbs and actually put them out in the backyard?” Stringbean laughed. “Of course not. I’d just turn them off.” “Exactly!” I said. “But . . .” “No buts, Stringbean,” I said. “Besides, what brings you here anyway?” “My bicycle,” he answered. I sighed. “I mean, why are you here?

Mila punched me in the arm. "Don't get goofy on me, Jigsaw! Ghosts are not real. And they don't write books!" I'll say this for Mila. She's got a pretty good right hand. My arm ached for the rest of the day.

Leaders peek behind the curtain to see what is hiding there. Look around your workplace and community. What do you see people doing now that they weren't doing a few years ago? How are people interacting when they are working virtually and not all in the same place at the same time? How do they feel about hybrid work, and what are the implications for change in your organization? What are the hot topics of conversation? What do people say is getting in the way of them doing their best? Listen as well to the weak signals. For example, what are people no longer talking about or paying attention to? Listen for things you've never heard before. What does all this tell you about where things are going? What's it telling you about what lies just around the corner? To envision the future, you have to spot the trends and patterns and appreciate both the whole and the parts. You have to be able to see the forest and the trees. Imagine the future as a jigsaw puzzle. You see the pieces, and you begin to figure out how they fit together, one by one, into a whole. Similarly, with your vision, you need to rummage through the bits and bytes of data that accumulate daily and notice how they fit together into a picture of what's ahead. Envisioning the future is not about gazing into a fortune teller's crystal ball; it's about paying attention to the little things that are going on all around you and being able to recognize patterns that point to the future.

Leaders peek behind the curtain to see what is hiding there. Look around your workplace and community. What do you see people doing now that they weren't doing a few years ago? How are people interacting when they are working virtually and not all in the same place at the same time? How do they feel about hybrid work, and what are the implications for change in your organization? What are the hot topics of conversation? What do people say is getting in the way of them doing their best? Listen as well to the weak signals. For example, what are people no longer talking about or paying attention to? Listen for things you've never heard before. What does all this tell you about where things are going? What's it telling you about what lies just around the corner? To envision the future, you have to spot the trends and patterns and appreciate both the whole and the parts. You have to be able to see the forest and the trees. Imagine the future as a jigsaw puzzle. You see the pieces, and you begin to figure out how they fit together, one by one, into a whole. Similarly, with your vision, you need to rummage through the bits and bytes of data that accumulate daily and notice how they fit together into a picture of what's ahead. Envisioning the future is not about gazing into a fortune teller's crystal ball; it's about paying attention to the little things that are going on all around you and being able to recognize patterns that point to the future.

You have to gather enough strength to go past a closed door like a jigsaw puzzle cut through wood. Keep pushing until you succeed.

While it's true we all have to choose our own paths in life, it's fair to say that other people we meet can heavily influence those choices.