I was taking my daily limp with the dogs round one of the beautiful lakes we have locally, ruminating in a random sort of way about things and people in the past.  Maybe it’s something old men are prone to; I’m not sure.  Plato said "An unexamined life is not worth living" and I think it’s good to do a bit of ‘examining’ now an again, as long as it doesn’t lead to one becoming self-obsessed or too introspective.  Anyway, mostly it’s enjoyable but there are, of course, some regrets, typically associated with people, not things, and I had a thought, a sort of metaphor for life, that it is like a jigsaw.  Now, when I got back it seemed to me that other people would be bound to have had the same thought so I put, ‘life is like a jigsaw’ into good old Google and right enough, there were plenty.  I was unsurprised and initially a little disappointed (an ego thing!) but as I trawled through them I found that they were different, mostly giving advice as to how to reorganise one’s life.  Mine is not so useful, merely a reflection, one which sits comfortably in my own worldview.  What I thought was that when one is born one is given a jigsaw puzzle.  There is no picture, it’s 3D and during one’s life one has to grasp the pieces, gently or firmly, as appropriate, live them and try to understand them, though if one doesn’t they will come to one anyway.  (More of that in a moment.)  As one goes through life one collects more pieces and slowly one starts to see some sort of picture forming, a developing picture of the world and a partial picture of one’s place in it.  Depending on how one lives one’s life, the more or less interesting that picture will be, and the more one thinks, understands and looks for pieces that one considers will fit into one’s picture, the more one learns of oneself and the world.  It is only at the end of one’s life that one can look at the jigsaw and see the whole picture, the complete world and universe and one’s place in it.  If one has gone out and lived life to the full (carpe (ing) the shit out of every diem!) one’s jigsaw will be a wonder to behold, bright and full of colour, though inevitably there will be areas of shade and dark here and there; if one has not, it will not.  Just a thought.