Rolling

Science class taught us all something that never seemed to make much sense. The textbooks called it potential energy, some idea that a ball sitting motionless atop some hill has more energy than the same still ball at bottom of said hill. Some lesson, we all thought.

Then we grew a little, we lived a little. We struggled through tremendous times of trouble and celebrated pure moments of victory. And we did it all along the great, eternal ebb and flow known by anyone who lives. Then, at some point, that little ball atop the hill began making sense.

Never did the ball below change for us, but the one with all the energy did. Because even our greatest moments of joy and purpose always hold that potential for lesser things. It is as if the ball possesses more than mere energy to fall, but the knowledge that it must.

That lesson never makes the textbook. It never makes any book. It only makes its mark on lives that choose to learn it, and more so still on lives that do not.