the puzzle maker

Sun 2.28.21,

      The master has spoken.  The image above of a recently installed lock on the outside of a door leading to a empty room, empty in the sense that a hotel lobby is empty, or any room which is unloved.  The room is hardly used.  My neighbor uses it to make jigsaw puzzles.  I often see her at her task from the windowed laundry room attached to it when I am washing clothes.  Puzzle time, I think is a form of meditation, a quieting of the runaway mind while one searches for the perfect puzzle piece.  I like my neighbor because I sense good energy emanating from her.

      But alas, maintenance has come with drill and a strong bit to pierce the heavy metal door and frame to install the Master.  I discovered the new lock this weekend when my clothes were in the dryer and I thought to take a look at neighbor’s progress with her current picture.  The lock unnerved me somehow.  My guess is that maintenance probably put a lock on the door to prevent people from congregating in the room, Covid 19, ya know.

      The lock itself is installed by fearful people trying to assert power.  Fear if you look at it objectively is a mechanism that controls one’s behavior beyond what is truly fearful.  The reason we lock up people is because we are afraid of them; they’re out of control.  Is maintenance afraid of the puzzle maker?  Absolutely!  Perhaps not her individually, but in general.  What happens with fear is that if you indulge it, it takes over.  It controls your life absolutely.  You do not want to be fearful, out of control, at the mercy of others.  So you install the Master on your door and you glory on the goodies your fear has produced, the bank account, the flashy car, or maybe you’re not that fearful and you settle for a good time, a full belly and an AK-47.

      On my clipboard is a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, “You must do the thing you think you cannot do!”  Fear prevents you from doing what it is you believe you cannot do.  If you’ve never done the thing why would you be reluctant to do it?  That’s the role that fear now plays in your life.  It took over somehow and became the Master Lock.  You have been banished from the puzzle room.  There is no longer any time to quiet the mind, to reflect, because you’ve got your Master Lock to take care of you.  You’ve escaped to your safe masked cocoon, your hand sanitizer and you keep everyone 6 feet away.

 The favorite essay this past month has been It All Started