Life is full of opposites. I imagine the big machine of life to be covered in millions of toggle switches, and some magical space monkey is seated in front of the console flipping them randomly. On, off. Up, down. In, out. High, low. Sometimes he just slaps his palm across several dozen at a time.
Boring or interesting. Depression or elation. Buff or flabby. Global crisis or not. Eating ice cream or wishing I was eating ice cream. Trapped behind a waterfall by an angry bear...or that blissful state of sitting on a couch that is nowhere near a bear or a waterfall.
Normally, for yourself, you'd pick the optimal position for all your switches and then just keep them there, right? No global crisis. Eating the ice cream. A life full of elating and interesting things. No bears.
Right?
Not really. Not all the time. It's not that I want the life full of bears and global crisis while lacking ice cream. I'm not craving drama. I'm just craving variety. And I can't appreciate the good stuff without seeing what the opposite is like. Also, I've got that leaky kind of brain that needs constant reminders. I've never been tied up in dealings with the mafia, but, knowing me, I'd forget the finer details of the experience inside of two weeks.
Stories thrive on undulation. In every chapter of a good story, there is conflict and resolution, excitement and calm, the ordinary and the not so ordinary. Undulation makes a story sing, and in a fascinating melody, not that boring old monotone of same-old-same-old. So flip those story machine toggles, space monkey. Flip them often.
And flip them in my life. Don't let things get stale. Don't let me stagnate. I might temporarily resent the ice cream switch turning off, but I'll thank you later.
And, in case you were wondering, I'm in a weird mood today. Blame it on the monkeys.
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