The Sudoku Way of Life
Okay, so I'm yet to finish 1841: The Year China Discovered the World by Gavin Menzies, I haven't started on A Conspiracy of Fools by Kurt Eichenwald and I still have over a dozen unread books in stock. Still, I wasn't able to keep myself from my book-hoarding tendencies when I trooped to Powerbooks and National Bookstore in Megamall in search of my new addiction - the Sudoku.
It's all Ketoy's fault. He brought along to our dinner on the 15th of Feb. his Book 1 of Sudoku and asked me to try to solve one of the puzzles. I had seen him with the book a few days prior to that night and I was wondering why he couldn't part with it. After solving one puzzle (without looking at the instructions and tips at that! ;), I perfectly understood why he got hooked. I couldn't rest until I got hold of my own Sudoku and I found it at National Bookstore-Megamall; the books were out of stock in Powerbooks-Megamall and Fully Booked in Rockwell. In followed long hours of solving puzzles one after the other. I was hypnotized by Sudoku.
Let me tell you why I think the Sudoku addiction is quickly caught.
The game Sudoku appears as a nine column, nine row grid, forming squares ala graphing paper, seemingly sporadic but actually strategically filled with numbers ranging from 1 to 9, and further marked to divide the 9x9 boxes into 9 big squares composed of 9 boxes within. The objective of the game is to arrange the numbers in such a way that it will not occur twice along the same column, row and within the 3x3 square. While you deal with numbers while solving the puzzle, it is not a numbers game wherein mathematical skill is required. Logic is what you need and going through the process of uncovering the correct number for each box is an exhillirating moment, in the neurological sense. It is very challenging, knowing that there is only one solution to the puzzle and very fulfilling, having been able to supply the correct numbers to suit the fixed number arrangement.
And so, a day after being initiated into it, I bought Books 1 and 2 of Daily Mail's Sudoku. Being never lukewarm to any interest that I have, with passion, I immersed myself in my Sudoku puzzles and introduced my sister to it. I had to discipline myself not to bring my Sudoko to work lest I be unable to resist being glued to it even at work.
I searched the web voraciously about Sudoku and found an online version (click here to play) which shows you your mistakes only if you click on a button. Websudoku has four levels, namely: easy, medium, hard and evil. And evil it is. So far, I have solved only one or two medium puzzles and never the hard one, nor the evil one of course. I confess I used to click on the "how am I doing?" button before but realized later that there's no point cheating as I am simply taking away the joy of puzzle solving. Also, I''ve found that, naturally, there is a Wikipedia entry on Sudoku which I will not reproduce here for sheer length and expansive discussion.
The Wikipedia article has lots of interesting stuff but I haven't gone as far as trying to understand why the so-called Latin square formula is the solution to the Sudoku puzzle. Nonetheless, I grasped that in the Sudoku world, there are no variables - only problems and a single solution to it. In the real world, many of us act as if the world is filled with variables, having oneself as the only thing constant. This way, many of us are filled with frustration because, naturally, things do not turn out the way we want them to. I realized that the solution to the problem is changing the way we look at it. This I call the Sudoku way of life - that is the realization that everything is constant and it is only oneself which is variable. This way, life will be less frustrating because there is more acceptance that, really, the only thing you can change is yourself. Which reminds me of my favorite prayer which goes:
God, grant me
the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can, and
the wisdom to know the difference.
- Anonymous
Go Sudoku*!
* No relation to Sadako. Read the Wikipedia article here.
It's all Ketoy's fault. He brought along to our dinner on the 15th of Feb. his Book 1 of Sudoku and asked me to try to solve one of the puzzles. I had seen him with the book a few days prior to that night and I was wondering why he couldn't part with it. After solving one puzzle (without looking at the instructions and tips at that! ;), I perfectly understood why he got hooked. I couldn't rest until I got hold of my own Sudoku and I found it at National Bookstore-Megamall; the books were out of stock in Powerbooks-Megamall and Fully Booked in Rockwell. In followed long hours of solving puzzles one after the other. I was hypnotized by Sudoku.
Let me tell you why I think the Sudoku addiction is quickly caught.
The game Sudoku appears as a nine column, nine row grid, forming squares ala graphing paper, seemingly sporadic but actually strategically filled with numbers ranging from 1 to 9, and further marked to divide the 9x9 boxes into 9 big squares composed of 9 boxes within. The objective of the game is to arrange the numbers in such a way that it will not occur twice along the same column, row and within the 3x3 square. While you deal with numbers while solving the puzzle, it is not a numbers game wherein mathematical skill is required. Logic is what you need and going through the process of uncovering the correct number for each box is an exhillirating moment, in the neurological sense. It is very challenging, knowing that there is only one solution to the puzzle and very fulfilling, having been able to supply the correct numbers to suit the fixed number arrangement.
And so, a day after being initiated into it, I bought Books 1 and 2 of Daily Mail's Sudoku. Being never lukewarm to any interest that I have, with passion, I immersed myself in my Sudoku puzzles and introduced my sister to it. I had to discipline myself not to bring my Sudoko to work lest I be unable to resist being glued to it even at work.
I searched the web voraciously about Sudoku and found an online version (click here to play) which shows you your mistakes only if you click on a button. Websudoku has four levels, namely: easy, medium, hard and evil. And evil it is. So far, I have solved only one or two medium puzzles and never the hard one, nor the evil one of course. I confess I used to click on the "how am I doing?" button before but realized later that there's no point cheating as I am simply taking away the joy of puzzle solving. Also, I''ve found that, naturally, there is a Wikipedia entry on Sudoku which I will not reproduce here for sheer length and expansive discussion.
The Wikipedia article has lots of interesting stuff but I haven't gone as far as trying to understand why the so-called Latin square formula is the solution to the Sudoku puzzle. Nonetheless, I grasped that in the Sudoku world, there are no variables - only problems and a single solution to it. In the real world, many of us act as if the world is filled with variables, having oneself as the only thing constant. This way, many of us are filled with frustration because, naturally, things do not turn out the way we want them to. I realized that the solution to the problem is changing the way we look at it. This I call the Sudoku way of life - that is the realization that everything is constant and it is only oneself which is variable. This way, life will be less frustrating because there is more acceptance that, really, the only thing you can change is yourself. Which reminds me of my favorite prayer which goes:
God, grant me
the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can, and
the wisdom to know the difference.
- Anonymous
Go Sudoku*!
* No relation to Sadako. Read the Wikipedia article here.
posted by wernicke at 9:44 PM
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