Years ago, I was shown a 16-mm fable about a ping-pong ball that bounced higher than its brethren. The ping-pong ball discovered its ability unbeknownst to the rest of its fellows, and was unprepared for the scorn and ridicule it received when it made its discovery known.
Angry and humiliated, the ping-pong ball embarked on an arduous odyssey of self-discovery, bouncing across the world amid traffic, ravenous pets, and many other hazards. Finally, full of wisdom, the ping-pong ball returned to its brethren, preaching a message of peace and tolerance that shamed its low-bouncing kin into renouncing their bigotry.
Its message concluded, the ping-pong ball began bouncing higher and higher, until with a high-pitched exclamation it shot straight up and disappeared from sight, perhaps never to return (although there were of course followers who claimed to have had visions of a second coming).
The ping-pong ball has never left me. It still exists, lodged in my skull, a smooth seamless surface in the place where others store the pale, wriggling maggots they call normality. On good days, it helps me bounce a little higher... on bad ones, I guess, I'm just another airhead.
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"The things in which we passionately believe: those things are precisely those of which we should be most wary."
--William Blake, "Proverbs of Hell"
See What You Like About Me for an interesting link to this page.
Original content on this page ©1998, Alan P. Scott. All rights reserved.
This document last updated November 19, 1998.
Contact me:
ascott@pacifier.com