Keep Away.
Ooh…that annoying game where teams waste their time trying to toss plastic flexy rings to each other. As usual, the teacher paired our team up with opponents we couldn’t handle. Sigh…just typical. Those bossy girls pushed us around, telling us to play the game their way. And seriously, who are we to stand up to them?
Wow, look what happened for the millionth time in a row. The rings were tossed out of bounds. Really out of bounds this time. It bounces nimbly down the concrete, and lands ker-splat in a rush of dust, smack by the bars in the sand pit. Automatically, I’m after it. Hey, it’s better than doing nothing.
Strange thing is, as I’m nearing the ring this time, going to retrieve it, another one of those crazy ideas I get when I least expect it suddenly pulls the blindfolds back over my mind and shoves itself into my face. Not very pleasant at the first instant, very similar to the type of common shock you might get if one of your friends actually did leer their faces right in front of your eyes. Instinctively, I take one step back from the sand pit for no good reason. That’s what you would’ve done if someone popped up into your own face, right? But, *insert groan here* this “crazy idea” suddenly becomes inspiration, and before you know it, I got another one of those new topic to write about with pen and paper. More like keyboard and computer screen, actually.
Now, the actual idea I suddenly got blasted by was this – circles are strange and enigmatic.
Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking – Hope is crazy!!! Seriously, circles?!! Of all things to have aspiration about! But really, if you thought about it some more, circles are and always have been a very strange and important part of our culture. For example, when people talk about life, circles can apply to that aspect of philosophy. Like that annoying song I got stuck in my head once, “The Circle of Life” from Lion King, one way people describe life is through cycles, and by cycles I literally mean circles. The rock cycle, the water cycle, the cycle of metamorphosing (butterflies, in particular, if that word comes as confusing to you), the cycle of life and death and rebirth and age and all that good stuff. You get my point (I hope). Cycles go on, and on, and on, and on…and never stop. Like car, truck, bicycle, or unicycle (see the word ‘cycle’ in there?) wheel(s), it will keep on spinning forever. That is, unless the tire pops or the metal gets all rusty and unusable, that’s a different story.
When people think about U.F.O.’s, they always seem to imagine classic drive-in movies with women screaming as a large, circular disk floats to the ground. Now just take out all that classic, drive-in, women screaming stuff. Sometimes, we like to treat mysterious things as circular objects, for those visual people. U.F.O.’s, for instance. And perhaps, for the extreme, clocks (particularly for dummies who don’t know how to tell time) and even a bottomless hole in the ground. Yes, I know that’s kind of absurd for an example, but I can’t really think of anything else. *shrugs*
Circles stand for “endless.” Because they basically are, endless. They keep going eternally. Cycles will keep going (excluding rusty spokes and deflated tires) in one smooth, flowing line around the circle, without stop. A person who’s willing to try could walk around in a circle, trying to find the end of the line, only to keep going around, and around, and around, and around…
I learned how to do Maypole Dancing today in Humanities. Very simple, truth be told, if only we had much more coordinated people *cough cough – Taras – cough cough – Tristan – cough cough* Cough drops, anyone? Anyways, the Maypole resembles a circle, but not enough, really. Now if the Maypole itself had been an endless line, never ending, then I could make my point. The dancers would keep on dancing in a circle, weaving in and out, in and out, endlessly. Because their circular dance is endless (until they reach the end of the pole, at the point of butting into each other’s heads), it’s another way to prove circles are endless as well. I know there are mathematical terms to prove circles are endless as well, but I really don’t know that much about Algebra or anything, so I won’t get into those details. Just a reminder that circles are relevant as well to math.
Our Humanities teacher also showed us a slideshow of all the pictures taken from our Meeting of the Minds Banquet. She noted that the pictures play in a loop. That means, that we’ll be watching those picture flash and dissolve, flash and dissolve, over and over again until someone either cuts the loop or stops the tape. Take your pick.
And you’d wonder, how do I think of all this just by going to pick up a stray ring in a game of Keep Away? I really don’t know. Go figure.
~Bavenmark
