My Rubik's cube philosophy

I once attended a party that broke into board games. In one part of the room, a group of people was playing a game of Uno. In another part of the room, the hostess was playing Chinese chess with one of the guests. I watched the game of Chinese chess. The guest was well aware that his ability in Chinese chess was far outmatched by the hostess’s ability. He whipped out his iPhone and initiated a Chinese chess game with a skillful computer opponent. He mirrored the hostess’s moves on the iPhone to see what move the computer opponent would do, and then moved his pieces in the “real life” game accordingly.

Essentially, he was nothing more than a robot faithfully executing the moves instructed by the computer opponent. Despite his complete lack of intellectual effort, he nonetheless attributed “his” eventual win to himself, congratulating himself sheepishly and boasting loudly.
It is very difficult for me to understand what sort of joy that “winning” in such a way could bring someone. It certainly doesn’t bring me any joy. I have an unsolved Rubik’s cube that I play with now and then. Once a house guest picked up my cube and whipped out his iPhone, looking for solve algorithms and pointing out that I could solve the cube that way. To me, that misses the point of having a Rubik’s cube.

My Rubik’s cube is not unsolved because I don’t have the ability to find a solve algorithm on the internet. I’ve in fact found solve algorithms based on Jissica Friedrich’s method before, “solved” the cube using such algorithms, and then found that I in fact derived absolutely no satisfaction from mindlessly executing moves that someone else figured out for me. I then re-scrambled my cube and decided to try to solve it on my own.

Don’t get me wrong. Studying someone else’s solutions may have its own benefit. But for me, I learn best when I have to struggle on my own first. It was true when I was in college, true when I studied for the LSAT, and true in any job where I had to pick up new skills. My Rubik’s cube isn’t solved because I don’t understand it fully yet. But I understand it a lot more from the times I have struggled with it and made a little progress, than from the time that I “solved” it using a published solve algorithm. And I may well arrive at a solution that is the same as one that’s already published, but it’s the journey there that’s rewarding.