A few weeks ago, I found a book in my room that I hadn’t seen since fifth grade. “Maze: Solve the World’s Most Challenging Puzzle,” is, like it sounds, a maze in pick-your-path book form. It consists of 45 illustrated pages, each a fantastical room that leads to a handful of others, accompanied by a few paragraphs of text hiding hints. Beyond the goal of finding the way to the “center” of the estate, the author challenges participants to decipher the “deeper meaning” of the maze.  

As a middle schooler, I pored over the drawings, searching for clues and tracking the different paths for hours. When I recently uncovered the book, I found it amusing, but I couldn’t quite get “lost” in the way I had before. I felt pressure to know the next move, and the time I spent analyzing the intricacies of each room felt painfully inefficient. It was uncomfortable to not have the answers.

So I entered a quick Google search for the solution. What I came across was overwhelming: a blog dedicated entirely to “Maze,” where fanatics posted elaborate theories that related the book to mythology, Shakespeare, and even Woodrow Wilson. I was blown away by the creativity, commitment, and most of all, absurdity of these comments. It must have taken weeks of navigating the pages to publish such thought-out conjectures.

What I understood, after reading through the blog, was that these participants were completely engrossed in the book’s mystery. Sure, they wanted a conclusion, but they also really liked being stuck.

This was a somber realization that forced me to consider the evident shift in my values over the past ten years—a transition towards practicality from idealism and creativity. It seems as though being in a deadline-driven, answer-favoring environment has left its mark on me. 

I don’t really mean this as a criticism of Parker. Our progressive phi celebrates ideas and curiosity with less of an emphasis on scores and results than most high schools. I’ve taken a number of classes that encouraged collaboration and problem solving, rather than emphasizing the need to generate correct answers. And the objectives of school—understanding content key to operating in the world, developing fundamental skills like writing and building arguments—aptly prepare us for life. 

Still, often it’s difficult to truly embrace the open-endedness of our curriculum. Considering that my schedule’s littered with deadlines and activities, squeezing everything in means leaving ideas unexplored. There have been so many instances when I wished I could’ve reread the Spanish text to fully understand the translation, figured out why, conceptually, a math problem works out in a certain way, or contemplated the ideas presented in an English reading. But I didn’t have time.

In this constant triage, the tangibles — annotations on a Spanish reading, answers to the math homework, talking points to raise in English class — rise to the top because they warrant grades. 

Without much time or incentive to consider intriguing yet impractical concepts, we can lose touch with a part of ourselves that is equally important to the role of a dedicated student. The pursuit of genuinely interesting topics allows us to discover and develop our real passions. Generally, it makes life more engaging. 

I’m still not sure if the Maze’s deeper meaning has anything to do with mythology, Shakespeare, or Woodrow Wilson. It has shown me, though, the importance of granting myself permission to follow my curiosity, embrace the unknown — and find joy in it too.