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When Curiosity Turns Into a Habit

A while back, I was killing time at an airport during a delayed flight. My phone battery was low, the Wi-Fi was unreliable, and I had already walked around the terminal twice. With nothing better to do, I picked up a small puzzle magazine from a nearby shop.

I flipped through the pages and saw crosswords, word searches, and a grid of numbers labeled Sudoku.

I had seen those puzzles before but never actually tried one seriously. The grid looked simple enough, so I grabbed a pencil and decided to give it a shot.

At first, I assumed I would try for five minutes and then move on. Instead, I ended up sitting there for nearly an hour, completely absorbed in that tiny grid of numbers.

That was the moment I realized Sudoku had a strange kind of magic.