Checkout | 06. Dec 2021

Piece-ful

As a child I was never a fan.

My grandmother gave us jigsaw puzzles for birthdays or Christmas - for me that was always a disappointment as the type o “gifts that you have to tinker yourself”. I couldn't even imagine that it would be a pleasure to put the little pieces of cardboard together according to your motif. And it stayed that way for the time being - somehow my time was too precious to spend it alone and quiet at a table. Especially since the goal was a rather kitschy photo, like kittens or the skyline of Heidelberg.

Now I have finally discovered jigsaw puzzles - as an alternative to any other possible occupation, so to speak. As an enclave in a world that continues to develop permanent multi-tasking with every device innovation. And it has long been no longer clear whether this is really an advantage. More and more often I catch myself not being able to just watch a movie anymore. The iPhone is always at hand - and me: just quickly checking a few emails, scrolling down Instagram, finishing a game.

Also, we are forbidden any kind of public event for so long that we are completely out of practice: How do you listen again or watch anything live? We have almost forgotten how to focus our interests exclusively on one thing.

Enter Puzzle! A real one, not the digital version. Rediscovered during our first Corona winter, I now have a real passion for the so-called placement games. Two conditions: a maximum of 500-1000 parts - and a motif that I enjoy.

Albrecht Dürer's "Young Hare", bought in the museum shop, as a souvenir of an impressive exhibition in Vienna's “Albertina. A historically significant front page of the New York Times. And just the other day a view of Capri's famous “Piazzetta” from the early 1960s, a find from the Zurich "Broki-House"

The thing is: jigsaw puzzles train a specific part of your brain. So you practice focusing in a playful way. You might as well knit sweaters with intricate patterns or finally, finally, start cross-stitching. But to be honest, I like the non-goal-oriented, pointless thing about jigsaw puzzles even better.

Because even Dürer's "Young Hare" will hardly make it to the wall above our fireplace.