Recent developments in this farce that passes for my life have led me to begin to wear an ass groove into Ponder Rock. Some of these developments are lovely, some are awful, and some are awfully lovely. The exact details of all these developments need not detain us here, they are exactly one person's business, and that person isn't in the mood to detail them to the world, at least not yet. When or if that times comes, it may give rise to a whole series of blog posts. Then again, it may very well not. Only time will tell.
This post was meant to written down (it was already "written" in my head) yesterday, but the combination of poor computer service, and an overall shitty day led it to being postponed by twenty-four hours. Some of it may have leaked out of the fragile eggshell brain of mine, and been lost to the mists of history, but I will try to get the majority of it on paper. It is a common and frequent failing of mine that I have a tendency to spin the beginning of a post in my head, and then either suffer an attack of laziness and don't bother trundling my fat ass to the computer to write it down, or forgetting the damn thing before I am able to make it to a computer. I fear this post may suffer from both of those maladies.
Ponder Rock is not an actual place. There is no large boulder like area with the words Ponder Rock chiseled into the side denoting that here is the place you've been looking for to sort out all the mysteries of the universe, or to try to sort out where all those socks go when they don't survive the holocaust of the dryer. Of course it would be nice to have a specific place overlooking some bucolic setting that eased the mind into the ruminative state necessary for one to figure out their life, and their loves and all the shit in between, but I am not sure it's possible. After all, my Ponder Rock, and your Ponder Rock might not be in the same spot, For me Ponder Rock, if it were an actual rock, would probably be beside some large body of water. I am not sure exactly why this is so, but bodies of water set me to thinking. Perhaps in some previous life I was a sailor (with the sad handicap of being unable to swim), and that is bleeding over into my present consciousness. Other people might have a phobia of wide, open spaces, and place their Ponder Rock somewhere completely different. Some place where they feel at ease, I suspect Ponder Rock, and the toilet get confused quite often. But hey, as long as the thinking takes place, who am I to criticize the location?
In my wanderings, both recent and in the past, I have found several Ponder Rocks. The key to my personal Ponder Rock is a lack of other people. I find them (people) distracting (especially tall girls, but that a different story), and therefore quite an impediment to any sort of serious thinking. And for me at least Ponder Rock is the place for serious thinking. It is not the place to finally sort out the paper or plastic dilemma that haunts all at the grocery store check out line. No, Ponder Rock while not exactly an exhaustible resource should be reserved for the more thorny problems that plague us. Superman vs Batman is a good thing to sort on the toilet, deciding whether to tell your boss that you've been sleeping with his/her daughter/son is something that may need sorting out on Ponder Rock. One can contemplate the general mysteries of the universe whilst stuck in traffic in Pigeon Forge (and you will be stuck in traffic in Pigeon Forge), but for a detailed, try to solve the mystery of her think, you need to hie thyself off to Ponder Rock usually sans her.
Not that you are trying to exclude anyone, it is just somethings need to be worked out alone before they are shared with the world. The world might not quite be ready for your jet packs for cats idea, and the cats of the world surely aren't, so it is best to spend some quality Ponder Rock time sorting out the mechanics of it all before you shoot your brave cat through the new cute girl neighbor's window that you are trying to impress with your cleverness. Cleverness is grand, cleverness while standing over yet another corpse of a catonaut is a whole different explanation entirely. Not that Ponder Rock is as serious as some Yale professor in his study, you can attempt to sort out the perplexing problem of why all of the running backs on your fantasy football team seem cursed with the inability to get out of the bathtub without pulling a hamstring, or you can try to solve the Rubik's cube you brought along for moments just like this. The decision is up to you, after all, it is your Ponder Rock.
Not being a physical place, and sometimes also being a bit of a pain in the ass, Ponder Rock(s) do, on occasion, come to you. You might be walking along minding your own business keeping an eye out for any descending space junk trying to kill you, but not thinking overmuch about anything in particular, when Ponder Rock jumps up like a prairie dog, pokes its head out, and asks some serious life altering question. It can be quite the awkward moment when you try to explain to some other person that you've been struck with an idea, and their presence needs to quickly become their absence. Depending on the person, the response can vary, and sometimes they are not exactly pleased that you've requested they put on their goddamn pants and exit stage left as quickly as they can manage.
The cloud of mystery that surrounds my own personal Ponder Rock is not exactly the point of this post, but we can at times get lost in the forest and miss the actual trees while writing. The recent developments that have led me to frequent Ponder Rock like a drunk frequents his local, are probably going to be life altering. It has yet to be determined if the alteration will be for the good or the bad, but it will certainly change things in my world. Like playing a game of cat and mouse with your own personal Gestapo, it sets the heart to racing, and the palms to sweating. It makes you wonder what or who is around the next corner, and think that maybe you actually should call your mother and tell her you love her before it is too late, either for her, or for you. It is not for the faint of heart, or the weak of character, and because other human beings are involved it is going to require telling quite a few half-truths, truths masquerading as lies, and downright lies. Some of these things may be told to people who deserve better, but some of them will be told to the Gestapo, and you have not lived a complete life until you lie to the Gestapo, and have them believe you. It is a wonderful, liberating experience.
Until these recent developments, I would have adhered to the idea that Ponder Rock only has seating for one. It is your Ponder Rock, and therefore it only needs room for you (and maybe a place to set your beer), but I have recently been converted to a new theory. As usual for me, it seems my original theory was flawed, and it took someone else to point that out to me. I am not even sure they realize that they did it, and that is the genius of the whole thing. They were, in many ways, the reason I was occupying Ponder Rock like the Nazis did Austria, I needed the room. That room, as it turns out was needed for reasons that I did not understand at the time. It is room for them on Ponder Rock, for the collective thinking that needs to take place. A solo Ponder Rock is a wonderful thing, it is something you can possess all by yourself, a place to tell the world to go fuck itself while you think in beautiful isolation, It is also, a selfish thing, a thing that once you realize is beautiful, but isolated, needs to be refurbished. After all, two heads are better than one, as they (whomever they are) say, and rocks come in many shapes, styles, and sizes. Eventually Ponder Rock(s) to continue to evolve, and to help you evolve need to be built for two.
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