Humankind's Fascination with Balls

GET YOUR COLLECTIVE HEADS OUT OF THE GUTTER (I know, that's asking a lot of some of you... Patti...)

I'm talking about spherical objects we play with starting as youth throughout our adulthood.

*sigh* ok, that didn't help clarify anything... Patti....

I'm talking about round things that bounce... OK.. I'M EXPLICITLY *NOT* TALKING ABOUT TESTICLES OR FORMAL DANCE PARTIES (sheesh...)

So...balls. Baseballs, footballs, soccer balls, tennis balls, golf balls, bouncy-balls, balls balls balls.

We, as kids, want balls. We take our balls and go home if the other kids tick us off, we go to K-Mart and see those HUGE bouncy-balls in the wire cage and have a fit until we can buy one and take it home...

But as much as we want balls... we DON'T want balls!!!

WHAT YOU SAY?

Well, think about it... what do we actually DO with the balls? We play with them by doing what?

Getting rid of them. We throw them, hit them with clubs and bats, kick them, bounce them, bump-set-and-spike them AWAY from us! We want the balls so we can more quickly and efficiently get rid of them. Therefore, we don't want them!!!!

Bouncing - Throwing a ball away at the ground or the wall, hoping it will return to us so we can throw it away again...over and over...

Baseball - Pitchers throw the ball away to a batter who's goal is to hit it away to a player who wants to throw a player out to the pitcher to repeat the process

Soccer - Players kick the ball away from them

Volleyball - team have three chances to hit the ball away from them

Golf - golfers are SO mad at the ball, they spend tons of money on equipment and lessons to hit the ball as far away from them as possible (I assume this anger comes from the ball often taking detours into lakes, "beaches", forests most of the time

So where does this crazy instinct to get rid of balls come from? I believe it's our internal fear that we cannot comprehend the math behind a cylindrical spherical object.

Yeah, I'm going with that. Circles are hard enough. Defined as "an infinite number of points equidistant from a single center on a single plane" - that means every time I've ever drawn a circle, I've drawn an INFINITE number of points. Very quickly, I might add. I would think that's impossible.

Now consider a sphere. An infinite number of points equidistant from a single center on a three-dimensional plane.

HOLY CRAP

Every ball is an infinite number of points... THAT'S SCARY CRAZY!!!!!


THROW IT AWAY!!!!!!!!