This is my Rubik's Cube.
I've known how to solve these things for over a decade now. My dad showed me how to solve it using 5 moves, ranging from 4 to 16 turns. Each of these 5 moves can be used as tools to put the pieces where you want, in a 3-phase system from start to finish. But being able to complete these three phases requires a knowledge of how the cube is built and how it was designed to move.
Although I am still able to impress people by my ability to solve it, I myself have grown bored with this method and have started developing a new way of thinking about it. See, I will never be able to use this method to complete a cube in 20 seconds. There are too many steps. As I study the cube and the way the pieces move across the 3 axes, I find new ways to do the things I already do, but in a significantly reduced number of turns.
The key is to think of the entire cube all the time, rather than the two or three pieces I'm dealing with at any one moment. This doesn't mean to memorize where everything is all the time. What this mindset does is afford me the freedom to combine the functions of the moves I already know, without having to go through every single step.
When I think in terms of the entire cube, I am able to create new moves that are specific to the current state of the cube. Furthermore, if I pay close enough attention, I can engineer my current move to set up the cube for my next move. In time and with practice, what will eventually happen is that the entire process will be one giant improvised move. This is how people look at the cube for 15 seconds, then solve it in 20. They don't have a vocabulary of set-in-stone combinations that they use at different points in the process - the entire solution is one huge combination.
I'm trying to learn how to live life like this. To learn how to treat my relationships like this. To look into the systems that we mere mortals have put in place, and see the underlying elements that make them what they are and understand why they function the way they do. It's looking at a person and seeing the world they live in. It's looking at a system or mechanism and asking "why." Because just like with the Rubik's Cube, I can't change my way of thinking until I gain a deeper understanding of the nature of the cube itself. Can I solve it? Yeah. But could I solve it more efficiently? You bet. It just takes determination, time, and paradigm shifts.
I think I read that somewhere...
This is all for now.
-R.
UPDATE:
I was lying in bed at about 3:30 this morning staring at the ceiling, and it came to me: the best way to explain this new mindset I'm trying to adopt. It's the difference between a local and an out-of-towner, with regards to driving. If someone from another state visits Dallas, I can give them directions from point A to point B. They'll know that one route, and if they stay long enough, they'll start to memorize it and learn other routes. But some people choose to limit themselves to memorizing routes. Then there are locals who have lived in the city their entire lives. They've got a map of the city burned into their brains. These people can come up with new routes - routes with shortcuts, scenic routes, routes that avoid freeways - because they just know the roads. I want to have the "mind of a local" when it comes to the Cube. Actually, when it comes to everything.
'NOTHER UPDATE:
I've been playing with the Cube every day at work this week, between tasks or whenever I needed to get my mental juices flowing. I've been counting my moves and timing myself, and when I averaged everything out, I've been pretty consistent about finishing it in 2:30 minutes and using (an average of) 75 turns per solve. This is using my new system where I apply the "mind of a local" to the whole cube. I solved it a few times using my old system, and the averages were about 4 minutes and a couple hundred turns.
