February 11, 2025
There’s a puzzle on the fourth floor that remains unsolved. Not a political, academic, or administrative one, an old-school piece of cardboard with a picture of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night cut up into 1,000 little pieces one.
It would be easy to turn this into a metaphor for something - there’s nothing we can’t do as a community, the harder the challenge the greater the reward, everyone in SMPA matters and fits just as every piece of a puzzle fits, working together we will bring stars to the night, and so on.
But in this case, the puzzle is just a puzzle. A community puzzle seems like a good way to bring people together a few minutes at a time to work on something unrelated to classes, internships, and headlines. The idea isn’t mine, my lovely young wife, Prof. Beckerman in the School of Public Health, said they have one, and it’s great, so I thought I’d get one and give it a try.
You can fill the puzzle with whatever meaning you would like, metaphor away. But let’s also solve it so I can buy a less complicated one to do next.