Member-only story
The Things We Decide We Can’t Do
On old limitations, easy shortcuts, and the peculiar satisfaction of proving ourselves wrong
At some point during my childhood, my parents gave me a Rubik’s Cube for either Christmas or my birthday.
It was the 1980s, so those things were absolutely everywhere. Everyone, their mother, and their pet monkey was trying to solve them, and it was a real point of pride if you could actually do it. I also seem to recall this being around the time all my teachers had first started talking about gifted I presumably was, so everyone had all these high hopes as far as what I might be capable of.
Surely, a little genius like me would be able to solve a Rubik’s cube, no problem, right?
Yeah, not so much.
I can be said to have a lot of strengths, but spatial reasoning has never been one of them. I could read and write circles around other kids my age, but mentally manipulating three-dimensional objects? Forget it. I was definitely interested in the cube, and I recall twisting it every which way until my fingers hurt. But like a lot of ’80s kids, I eventually decided it was beyond me and abandoned it.
Fast-forward about 40 years.
