I bought a Rubik's Cube recently and spent some time learning how to solve it. Tutorials in my native language(Tamil) ended up being the most useful, more than I expected. It took me a couple of days to get familiar with the algorithms and now I can solve the cube in about 5–7 minutes, depending on the scramble.

A standard 3x3 cube has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 (about 43 quintillion) possible combinations. Despite this, any scrambled cube can be solved in 20 moves or fewer and a result known as God's Number proven in 2010.

What I didn’t expect was how obsessed I would get with it initially. I would keep trying “just one more time” for hours. For the first few days, it honestly gave me headaches and even a little nausea because my brain was constantly trying to process patterns, movements, and steps. I’d randomly replay algorithms in my head even when I wasn’t holding the cube anymore.

But after a point, the moves no longer feel random but natural. I began recognising patterns instead of thinking through every single step. That part was surprisingly satisfying. Right now, I enjoy how focused it keeps me. There’s no space to think about ten other things while solving it. You have to stay with it completely or you lose track midway. It is fun.