Logic has a way of killing dreams

I was recently told that I have very fickle emotions.  I immediately agreed of course, because that's what fickle people do, but then I realized that I wasn't exactly sure what fickle even meant.  According to good ol' dictionary.com, fickle means "likely to change, esp. due to caprice, irresolution, or instability; casually changeable."  I would absolutely agree with this, but I'm not a big fan of the word "casually" or "irresolution" in reference to something as serious as my emotions.  Because of this, I went on to look up "capricious," the first word referenced on the thesaurus list for "fickle," but that basically just said that it was "indicative of caprice or whim."  (What kind of a definition is that? Obviously something capricious would be indicative of caprice, hence the "-ious")  I moved on to "whimsical" (<-- great word), and that's where I hit the jackpot: "given to whimsy or fanciful notions."  I know that sounds kind of gay, but it's quite possibly the greatest definition for my emotions ever.  (Editor's note:  Don't worry, even though the writer is sounding pretty self-centered right now, he's going somewhere.  I promise.  Because if he's not this wouldn't get published).  Anyway, I do have whimsical emotions.  I get extremely excited about mildly exciting things, and extremely bummed about mildly disappointing things.  Anyway, I'd like to take this time to thank whoever it was that made me so whimsical (Family?  Peers?  God?  Bill Watterson?), because you've made the past 19+ years a lot more enjoyable.

This is what would happen if Calvin wasn't whimsical.

I have a lot of optimism, to the point where my brain tries to talk my heart out of doing things.  Sample conversation from early August, 2010:

Heart:  "The Indians are definitely winning the World Series."
Brain:  "You're an idiot."
Heart:  "Are you kidding?  We're about to hit our hot streak.  Just you wait.  We just recalled Michael Brantley!!!"
Brain:  "We're behind the Royals in the standings right now.  The Kansas City freakin' Royals.  Finishing in 4th place of the worst division in baseball isn't even a given right now.  There's a good chance that if we won 80% of our games from here on out we still wouldn't even make the playoffs.  How are we supposed to win the World Series?"
Heart:  "How can you possibly think we'll only win 80% of the rest of our games?"

At this point, I begin to imagine my brain bashing its head against a wall.  I will always side with my heart, though, because my heart always has a better time.  Logic has a way of killing dreams, and that's not something that I'm in favor of.  I would much rather have incredibly optimistic dreams, go head-first into everything, and have absolute joy than hang out in the neutral zone in order to protect myself from the fall that comes from being that high up emotionally.  What's the point of not getting hurt if you're not going to ever find joy?  That's like going through life without ever making friends because, inevitably, they'll all eventually die.  You might as well enjoy them for as long as possible, right?  Same goes for emotions.  You might as well feel that joy that comes from the belief that everything will work out for as long as possible, even if there's a chance it will all come crashing down.

When Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins (this guy gets no love) got back from the moon, I bet that looking up there at night killed them.  They reached a goal that had been thought impossible to reach for billions of years, the high that they felt must have been incredible, and therefore the resulting low must have felt terrible.  I still get sad about the fact that middle school is over, and that wasn't that great.  How nostalgic are they that they aren't on the moon anymore?  However empty that feels, they didn't give up the opportunity to attain that high.  They could have said, "I don't want to be let down if it fails or let down once we get back," and given the duty to somebody else, but they realized that the joy that came from their achievements would be so great as to be worth any possible nostalgia.

According to Jim Valvano, who should be everyone's hero to some extent, " there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special."  Number 1 is easy, we all do that.  Number 2 is more tricky, but also pretty easy to attain.  Number 3, however, is incredibly difficult.  How many people can honestly say that they can do this?  My guess is none, but it's a pretty good goal, and I honestly believe that the world would be better if everybody could do this.  This type of emotion requires passion of the highest caliber, and passion is incredible.

Doesn't seem like a bad life to me.

There's no reason to ever be afraid to show emotions.  There's no reason to ever not be passionate.  I have no idea who Charles de Lint is, but he, at one point in his life, whenever that was, said, "When all's said and done, all roads lead to the same end.  so it's not so much which road you take, as how you take it."  We're all born and we all die, and we all have one chance at everything along the way, so why not try to find as many times as possible to be absolutely joyful?  I'm more than willing to be whimsical, with all of it's lows, as long as it keeps bringing me the highs.