Pieces

If I’m ever asked about love, joy, sadness, triumph, fatherhood… my response these days is usually the same for all of them.

“It’s a feeling so big,” I tell everyone, “that I have to break it into pieces just to understand it.”

Like dissecting frogs or anything else involving the scientific process, I have to examine all the angles. It’s not enough to just feel joy anymore; I have to understand how it was constructed, how the gears fit together, how the machine functions.

Because then, in a modular way, I could build new emotional systems, ones that are more efficient, ones that carry me through clouds, through the front door, and into a hot shower.