"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."
- Hamlet

I never considered myself intelligent. I wasn’t smart or intellectual. Nor was I a nerd. I was inquisitive but never resourceful enough to find real answers. I was nosy so I pried. Still not finding answers. But I was, and still am, stubbornly obsessive. That’s not in a creepy and dangerous manner – although it depends on who you ask. I am terribly persistent and usually with tasks that lead to no end. I mean, there are ends, but I usually never find them.

What was it that they say about insanity? Trying and failing is understandable. Repeatedly trying the same efforts and getting the same failed outcomes makes people think you’re drinking the crazy juice.

This isn’t so serious. Not as serious as this sounds. But during those mornings when I should be working or being productive or be generally living beyond the subconscious breathing, I am figuratively banging my head on the wall. Over. And over. Over a crossword puzzle.

One day, it was 46 across. Another it was 27 down. Another week, and being relentlessly frustrating, it was 1 across. Yes. The first clue that they give and BAM you already hit a roadblock.

I’m not sure what’s more frustrating – not answering the first clue and effectively giving up a homerun on the first pitch. Rough way to start especially since games are often won with unrelenting confidence. Or, is it working through a tough puzzle hammering out the colloquialisms and 5 word combinations, only to find yourself in that corner in the bottom right of the puzzle.

What’s worse? Not having a chance to play the game or working it until the end and not being able to close out the deal?

There was one puzzle in particular that haunts me. No, really. It haunts me because it taunted and gave and taunted and gave and taunted until I couldn’t take it anymore and had to put the puzzle down. I reached my stop and exited the train. I left it there on the seat. I really lost all hope and excitement that the puzzle would be worth it.

I went about my business in the city – soaking in the chill and sunny day. Paid no attention to a daunting task (I know, I know.. JUST a crossword puzzle) that bothered me so much. Was it because I quit? Was it because I wasted time on the puzzle? Every newspaper has two. Or more.

By the time I had to take the train to leave, I was content. I had washed myself of my earlier failure with an otherwise good day. I knocked out a Sudoku. I worked the brain teaser. Lots of puzzles that day and I took them down. Others, I didn’t even notice. And I bought a book that spoke to my soul. It was non-fiction. It was directive. It demanded nothing of induction. And, I was planning to read it on my way home.

The car was empty. Normally, I’d find my seat with my back to the window facing away from the inner rail so I could watch the life of the world pass by. Instead, I found my seat in a row. It was in the middle of the car facing backwards – I watched the world as I passed it instead of looking ahead. It was a ½ second delay to the real life broadcast. Since no one was in the room, I placed my leg on the seat and looked across the other seat parallel to mine. There was a folded newspaper with the business section talking about the housing boom. This happened a while back.

I decided to grab the newspaper and flip it around to the lifestyle section where the comics and games were found. There it was. The same puzzle from the day’s paper. Blank.

58 Across stared at me. It was a 6 letter word with a clue of “Titanic oversight”. The tail end of the word completed two short down words but I couldn’t capture them, with all the options, without 58 Across. I also knew that the word had to do with the well-known story of Titanic. It must’ve been about the sinking. Something like that. Or was it.

I stared at the letter and pondered the clue for the rest of the 10 minutes on my home. As I approached the stop, I had already filed through the various possibilities that could come forward, but nothing fit right. And when the doors opened, I stayed in my seat. I was determined to figure out the word by the next stop that was merely 2 minutes away – a 7 block walk.

And finally, like bad movies usually show, I resolved my situation. “R-U-D-D-E-R”. It was as simple as that. The rudder on the Titanic was infamously – and maybe even incorrectly noted as – too small to help turn the Titanic sharply enough o avoid the iceberg that caused its demise. But, if anything, the slightly too small of a rudder plus the multitude of arrogant decisions in the design of the ship and the captaining of it qualified as oversight – tragic oversight.

I stepped out of the train at the next stop as I had accomplished my headache of a miniscule task for the day and felt irrelevant. Thinking of the Titanic’s story was transcendent. With the ship – full sails (although it had none) ahead was destined for disaster because of faulty decision-making. It couldn’t stop. It couldn’t turn. And down in the freezing water it went – immortalized now in stories that only remind us of the ship’s size versus the extent of the death that ship was responsible for. Those were thousands of lives stuck in their situations. Me? I’m on person that chooses to run through in mud.

Although it provided some needed perspective, 58 Across really ended up being worthless. Life moved on. During my oversight – the world moved on without me.

posted by: breakfast boy

Bell's ringing @ 1:06 AM

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