passion...schmassion

Day 9967: Thinking outside of the box

There are 127 players in a tennis tournament. 126 of them are paired up in the first round to play 63 matches with one player as a bye. In the next round there are 64 players with 32 matches and so on. How many matches will it take to determine the winner of the tournament?

I like brain teasers. I don't claim to be very good at them, but I like them. There's something about the way they force you to think outside of the norm and help stretch your imagination and logical thinking abilities. And then on the other hand, there's something about the way you kick yourself when you don't see the obvious answer and mutter profanities at the person who told you the teaser.

A mute goes into a pharmacy and wants to buy a toothbrush. He goes to the pharmacist and makes the motion of brushing his teeth. Voila, he gets his toothbrush. A blind man goes into the same pharmacy and wants a pair of sunglasses. What does he do?

Life is a brain teaser. There is extraneous information thrown at you from all directions. There are the obvious answers to the obvious questions, and there are the not so obvious answers to the not so obvious questions. You have to filter the information, squeeze out the facts and come up with a viable solution. May not be the best solution, may not be the only solution, but eventually you come up with a solution.

There are the questions that some people are good at and there are the questions that they're totally horrible at. Some can't do the math problems. I can't seem to figure out most problems. Yet still I try.

How many times a day do a clock's hands overlap?

These questions teach you to ignore the obvious and go for the hidden depths. To explore deeper and go beyond the surface. Nothing is ever as obvious as it seems and it is foolish for us to think so. My life, my teaser... my problems. They will never be solved even when I die. There will always be that one person who questions "why did she do that? what did she mean by that". And that riddle will never be solved.

What is our purpose? What is life? What is your teaser? There are things I aspire to do and there are things that I am interested in doing. Not necessarily related, but how to link from one area of your life to another area. What is important to you? What drives you to do what you do? I only wish I knew. I only wish I understood my life... my teaser.