A puzzling project

Yeah, I’m talking about literal puzzles, and I couldn’t even come up with a better pun than that.

This is what I’ve been working on lately:

I seem to attempt a puzzle on maybe an annual basis for the past couple years (that is, once free time opened up due to more independent kids).  The original intention was for this to be a family project, but I ended up being the only one that really worked on it.  And I wouldn’t say that I’m particularly good at it, either; this current one feels like it’s taking forever.  And it feels, well, almost addicting, in that I get absorbed in it (“just one more piece”) and stay up late or don’t get done whatever it is that I intend to be doing, and then kick myself afterwards.

And working on a puzzle is this bizarre feeling of achievement and non-achievement at the same time.  Hooray!  I figured out where this piece goes.  Yay!  I connected up these two sections!  And yet – so what?  At the end of the day I will have a puzzle (unless I throw in the towel first because it’s been cluttering up the living room for too long).  What good does it do me?  I suppose I can rationalize that it’s keeping my mind sharp (though it doesn’t feel that way) and I’m forestalling dementia in the same way as someone who does crossword puzzles every day.  And there are plenty of things people do for fun that have no lasting benefit, from binge-watching TV to eating big bowls of ice cream.  But doing a puzzle (or at least, this puzzle in particular) bugs me, I suppose, because at least large portions of the time it’s not inherently enjoyable and has a large dose of frustration added to the mix.

In fact, it started to feel like that sort of book that you get half-way through and it’s just not doing anything for you any longer, but you force yourself to finish it just because, well, you should finish reading books you start.  So I’ve moved it to an out-of-the-way spot for the time being, and I don’t know if I’ll end up finishing it up later or just dig up the inflatable “roll your puzzle” and set this aside for a longer time.

So, readers, do you do puzzles, and, if so, what do you do with them afterwards — keep them in some fashion, or dismantle them?  Or what other sorts of craft-y hobbies do you pursue?