PING

. . . It just started raining. The raindrops are really big but still, it’s only a shower. I can hear them hitting on the roof. Those landing on shingles make a hollow “Thud” sound while the drops that hit the free-spinning vent resonate with a metallic “Ping.” Many more thuds than pings as the vent is only a basket size island in a sea of shingles. Simple math explains the random distribution. Where would we be without simple math; it’s the proof to everything quantitative, everything objective. Even if we draw familiar comparisons in lieu of reliable numbers, like, ‘bigger than a bread box’, you can estimate after all, when close enough is close enough. When math goes rogue with brackets inside of parentheses, factoring the alphabet instead of numbers it becomes a convoluted language of its own and I default back to estimation, ‘fine as spider web.’ 

Rain had stopped but it’s falling again. My estimate on Pings to Thuds is about 1:10 or 10%. The nice thing about estimating is; there is a measure of critical thinking required but also, a wide margin for error. So, if we arbitrarily accept a + or - 5% margin for error it would seem the ratio of Pings on my ventilator is about equal to the ratio of Americans with graduate degrees from accredited universities. Now that I’ve equated raindrops on my roof to people, that’s called anthropomorphizing, attributing human traits to things or animals, each Ping and Thud have human qualities, able to think and speak and behave like I might. I do that; anthropomorphize things and such. 

If I were a raindrop I would have begun life as a microscopic dust particle, adrift in the atmosphere. Then, because of polarity and the adhesive nature of water molecules, one of those little H2O’s would stick to me, and another, and another until there were enough to form a microscopic droplet, on and on until uplifting forces in the sky were overcome by gravity and I began my plunge toward the ground. Gaining speed, I would collide with other H2O molecules and droplets, adding them to my mass, growing like crazy. I would take the shape of a sphere, slightly elongated by a low pressure zone on my back-side and, emerging from a cloud, my destination would come into sight. There it is, the bull’s eye, the roof of a house covered with shingles and a ventilator vent. The odds are against it but if I’m lucky I might hit the vent, make a ping. It would improve my chances of prosperity even upgrade my social status. 

I got lucky. So I’m a ‘Ping’, so what! I know some big words and I can do math as long as we use numbers and four functions. That’s where the anthropomorphizing kicks in. Taking credit and placing blame is such a human thing; math, even with a huge margin for error, is preferable to ego, greed and denial. Random raindrops  don’t care. I was more lucky than industrious, more charmed than deserving. Coincidentally, I landed in the right place at the right time. If I have been blessed, it has been by good fortune, karma, yin & yang, the thin difference between “Thud” and “Ping.”