In 1909, Carl Jung took a week-long trip across the Atlantic in a steamship. Most folks alive today won’t fault him for that — after all, it was the fastest way to cross the ocean at the time. But I suspect many of our contemporaries find it quaint, even pitiable, that aspiring travellers would need to waste expend so much time just to traverse empty space.

This morning I had a good ol’ time trying to figure out a chess puzzle. If you dig the game, put a White king on f2, knight on f3, and rook on c2. Black has a king on h1 (which, you may notice, can’t move), a queen on f4, and pawns on d4 and d5. It’s White’s move. Without those two pawns, the position is a dead draw (though still pretty interesting). With the pawns, White has one way to win — and it’s beautiful.

At some point on his transatlantic journey, Jung was gazing down into the abyss (a privilege granted to few who travel by air) when he had a beautiful thought. What that thought is, and how it influenced his career, and how his career influenced your life — these are not what I want to talk about right now. Go look it up later. The point is that he had this idea in a moment of solitary idleness in the middle of nowhere Nature.

Had I immediately understood the key idea of my chess puzzle and quickly solved it, I would have been deprived of nearly all the elegance and joy the puzzle offered. I saw that with several moves, White can threaten checkmate along both the first rank and the h-file, while Black can seemingly cover both threats. Also, Black will totally be willing to sacrifice the queen for White’s rook, saving a draw in what is (according to the puzzle prompt) a losing battle. Complicated. Unknown.

Jung saw his beautiful thing, had his transcendent moment, rose above the dull drudgery of the everyday because he had the time. Indeed, his circumstances forced him to have the opportunity, and he was wise enough to take it. I experienced beauty, caught a glimpse of the rare and pleasantly unexpected, because I was dumber than Stockfish. My limited brain forced me to have the opportunity, and after some initial frustration, I got the point (of the puzzle, but first of the metapuzzle).

Slow down. Getting there may be half the fun, but it’s all the growth.

I pity the harried, hurried commuters who think something important is waiting for them in Paris or L.A. or home or work. The place you think you need to go, and the place you started from, are the anchor points, where the string is fixed so that it may vibrate. The music is in the middle.

How many profound, accidentally lovely, significant human advances have been denied to the millions who’ve crossed the ocean since ships went out of fashion? What is the cost of our newfound efficiency?

And the key to the puzzle is those dang Black pawns. I cannot tell you the right moves without flying over the moment of inspiration. Get a board and work it out for yourself.