let's go, broncos

it is so silly to let external things get the best of us~ we have cores so much deeper than any of the nuisances that constantly try to burn us up...we are redwoods, towering in the forest and impervious to fire. on the underside of the world, just below our feet, there is a mirrored image of each of us, standing tall beneath his or her actual self. m wishes that our reflections bounced back our strengths, not our weaknesses. perhaps that is merely a cultural trinket to be tossed away - the commodities of today forming the laughable rubbish of tomorrow.

so yes the broncos won their rival game today, and yes matches watched it with delight. and he feels good that his (?) team triumphed. but he also remembers other times, walking dejectedly out of sports bars because whatever team was psychologically embraced at the time got demolished by the competition. he remembers it ruining a good part of the day, this loss by a sports team that he is somehow loosely-associated with, or which he follows and knows a few statistical scraps about. and that's just ridiculous. m has barely any real grounds on which to remark that something like that would affect him, and yet it tends to. he feels pretty good that the broncos won. and it's great to feel good...but it also makes him think of how ridiculous it is to let something like that drag down a portion of your day, if perhaps things don't go quite as well. he probably would have suffered that same fate had shanahan not called that last-second, kicker-icing timeout.

and it iced like a smooth buttercream frosting on a carrot cake, just so you know~

but the point is certainly not football. the point is that we, as whatever it is you consider yourself to be on this world, in this whirling universe, are more dense than most suspect; it seems out of the question to let your happiness or wellbeing be scattered by any such emotional distress. we all have hidden caverns riddled with treasure and history, just waiting to be looted when there is a need. emotions are such fickle wisps most of the time...the football depression is a perfect example. there is such richness in our lives, so many under-appreciated aspects, so much that we constantly forget in order to economize our thinking. being a person is a process of dealing with external things...there is no getting around that. but to let them white-wash our minds of everything that fortifies and nourishes us, to give them reign enough to dismiss our notions of who we are, what we can enjoy, to let them steal your joy from you...this is a bit of madness that matches hopes we have only inherited recently, and that can be consciously isolated and controlled.

only a few rare emotions are worthy of that highest time-thieving and mind-shifting honor, that solemn depression or euphoric elation. you will know them and feel them like lightning, cleaving to the core, when they arrive in your moment. but it is mostly silliness to confuse mild winds with a full-blown storm, and carelessness to let your happiness be whisked away by such slight and trivial alterations.

"i will seek out a face, a composed, a monumental face, and will endow it with omniscience, and wear it under my dress like a talisman and then (i promise this) i will find some dingle in a wood where i can display my assortment of curious treasures."
~ viginia woolf, 'the waves'