If there is a God, he must hate me...

Have you ever noticed that when one part of your life doesn't run smoothly, it seems like everything else is falling apart too?

Well I refuse to do it. I refuse to pile it up and feel sorry for myself. I refuse to convince myself that there is some kind of a supernatural conspiracy theory out there against my happiness. Bad days, bad luck, disasters, call it what you will, but they are simply a series of unfortunate events...that may seem connected but in reality, are random at best. Who knows...maybe I see the importance of separating every occurrence as its own individual event...or maybe I just feel that if there were larger-than-life forces out there, they would have more important things to do than plot evil against someone as inconspicuous as me.

In life, when shit is being thrown at us...especially in an obnoxious and continuous way...I have to think that the laws of physics apply somehow. You know that popular saying: "what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger?" Well au contraire...whoever said that, I think it's ultimately true but completely difficult to relate to. Instead...I think of people as bouncing balls. When we hit the surface...that's like shit hitting the fan. But then we always bounce back up, that's recovery, good luck, happy times, whatever. Unless---we hit a really sharp object...which deflates us completely and we lose our function as a bouncy ball altogether...that's death. But it's sad and unpredictable so I'm not going to discuss it. Back to the bouncing ball, sure everytime we hit the ground we naturally bounce back up...but gravity has made it so that we will never quite reach the same height as we had before. So each time we bounce, we lose a little more air. Just like when we are continuously disappointed in life, it becomes harder and harder to be happy. As we become less and less bounceable, it becomes apparent that what we need is to be pumped up with air again. Like when a basketball is refilled with air, or even simpler when a plastic ball is blown up again. This refilling of air is analogous to when we are feeling so low that we need a pep talk, whether that'd be from a friend or from ourselves. We seek consolation, advice, R&R, a hug, whatever the devices, but the purpose is to get pumped up again. So now, full of air, we begin the bouncy journey again. Never quite bouncing up to the same height that we did when we were first created, but nevertheless still a good bounce or two left. Until we wear out completely, as every ball--person will. That is life to me, simplified by a toy and physics. The analogy works.

It gets a little more complicated though when we think about how we like to be filled with air. Taking comfort in friends, technology, food, other things, is always good but I like to be able to cheer myself up, pump my own air. The other complication is how well we are able to take all that air we get pumped with and really channel it into a respectable bounce. Some people seek out consolation but never really take it. Ultimately, you have to believe that you WANT, more than anything in this world, to be able to bounce back. Even if you know you can't bounce as high as you did before, you're still gonna aim for that height because who knows? It would be a terrible waste, even for a ball, to believe that you are born with only one good bounce, that is a lame ball.

Of course there is really no such thing as good balls or bad balls, which is why my analogy will never be perfect. But it's pretty damn close.