Living by the 8 Ball

Last week while grocery shopping, I noticed the 8 Ball toy. I didn't expect to see it there on the shelf in the context of being a grocery store item. As it sat there and I stared at it for a few seconds, it awakened the chambers of my brain that long ago stored away the memories of my young self looking to the 8 Ball to reveal the meaning of life.

All these memories in the flash of time it took me to reach for it on the shelf and find a special, safe spot for it in my cart.

I continued the mundane task of food shopping and actually forgot about it until I got home and unpacked it. Again, it demanded my attention and while unpacking the other groceries, I found another special, safe spot for it in my apartment where I could leave it until I finished my chores.

Once done, I retreated with a cup of tea to a comfy area while I contemplated the 8 Ball still in its packaging. I remembered that my sister somehow managed to claim my original 8 Ball. The packaging claimed that this new one had 20 responses, as though the original had fewer, but I have no memory of that detail.

As I removed the packaging, I did it as though I were unraveling a sacred object. I was struck by the almost ritualistic way I was perceiving and handling this little object. I realize now, that this moment was significant because it honored in its own way, the beginning of my childhood interest in making sense of the unknowable aspects of reality that we call life. Sure, my friends and I used the Ouija Board too, but the 8 Ball was a cut to the chase method and offered direct responses. And sometimes it even offered an opportunity to come back and check later (and who doesn't like that when they're obsessing over a question?)

Oddly enough, I didn't start asking a trillion questions. I asked only one that first day.

It occured to me that for all my effort in making the best choices I know how, it has not left me so well off in life. I don't mean to say that I am bitter, sad, or unhappy, but for all the effort I've used to think through the situations and decisions that define the parameters of my life, I'm really not very impressed with where I ended up. And so in holding that little ball of plastic in my hand it further brought to light that so much of life is random and has as much to do with luck and timing as really knowing the right answers.

When people ask me what my religion is my honest response is that I believe in the law of physics. Like numbers, laws of the natural world lack emotion. Events happen as a consequence of other prior actions. Every split second decision, action, and thing I have ever done in my life merges with everything everyone else has ever done and and leads me here to this moment, holding this little black 8 Ball at age 50 and still wondering what the heck is going on. Even the way I hold the ball, ask a question and retrieve the answer has to do with the actions that led to this moment. "So what the hell" I thought, "I'm gonna try asking the 8 Ball for some answers."

So there it is. I'm going to allow the seemingly random decisions of the 8 Ball to guide some of my daily activities when I have no real clue what to do or no opinion either way.

Oh, and for the record, my decision to start this blog was based on a question I had for the 8 Ball.