60. A Need For Puzzles

Let’s start today with a story about how to catch wild pigs.

In the midst of his story, he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, ‘Do you know how to catch wild pigs?’ The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punchline. The young man said this was no joke. ‘You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come every day to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again.

You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate on the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat; you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.
(Norman Wolife)

I don’t know if this story is true for pigs but there is some truth about society. The process described - a gradual conditioning to dependency followed by entrapment - mirrors various historical and contemporary examples. Societies or groups become accustomed to conveniences, protections, or subsidies from authorities or governments, only to find themselves in a constrained or controlled situation from which it is difficult to escape. Why does this happen? The movie, Red Sparrow, demonstrates this well. In a scene, the protagonist, Dominika Egorova, is in a training camp for KGB spies, a.k.a. sparrows, where a lesson in manipulation is being taught. The matron says the following:

"Every human being is a puzzle of need. You must learn to intuit what is missing, become the missing piece, and they will give you anything."
(Red Sparrow)

It is a powerful message for the weak and powerless characters in the movie. Through coercion, it becomes the missing piece for them. They are forced to give up everything for the promise of this power including their identity. The quote is an oversimplification but we must recognize its truth to defend against it. That is the secret to overcoming our weaknesses- recognizing the truth. 

Our best connection to truth is via rational thinking. Through guesses and criticism, we can form and reject explanations of who we are and what drives us. We can become the missing pieces for ourselves or even redefine what it means for us to be human. Our ability to create knowledge makes this possible. The mistake generalizations like the quote from Red Sparrow makes is to assume we are unchanging animals, but every day is an opportunity to change ourselves, to change the game, and to mix things up. Our limitations do not define us. Instead of characterizing us as "puzzles of need" I offer the following: we are problem solvers in need of puzzles.