January 2, 1999
Sparks
I am perhaps the world's largest attractor of static electricity. Dressing or undressing, I could probably power an electric chair. If I touch one of those generators at a museum that's supposed to make your hair stand on end, the generator breaks (happened in middle school). I fully expect to be struck by lightning someday.
Thus, my natural predilection makes me interested in sparks. The spark (not the spork, though I don't know why not) has got to be one of the most prevalent and diverse symbols in our culture. We exist because of a spark of life within us. My thinking comes from spark of knowledge embedded on us back during the Renaissance from some ceiling painting by Michelangelo. Perhaps the most interesting connotations concern the issues of love and hate.
Sparks are created when two objects rub against each other with high friction or opposite charges. In a sense, they don't like each other. So, when sparks fly between two people, we often take this to mean they're at war. However, sometimes this means the two are meant for each other. If I would kiss the Swedish Woman, the one soul in the world meant for me, I am supposed to feel some spark as a sign that this is it! One spark. . . not two, or three, or five million, seven hundred and forty-eight thousand, six hundred and nine sparks, but only one. So, does it mean that one spark means love but many hate?
This might be true. I have a theory about love. You see, I make theories about love and thus people run away from me. That's the theory.
Another theory is that the secret to finding someone you love is not finding someone who thinks and opinionates like you do. You want to find someone who disagrees with you in a way that is interesting. This person's views are not your own, but open you to a new range of possibilities without changing you greatly. Unfortunately, we usually get angry at people who differ from our views or are too eager to follow the latest craze, so finding the balance between difference and liking is where the difficulty comes in.