What is the tallest mountain the the world?

The easy answer to that question is Mount Everest. Like a lot of easy answers, that one includes some hidden assumptions. More clearly, Mount Everest has the highest summit when measured from sea level. If you instead measure from the base of the mountain, then Mauna Kea in Hawaii gets the top spot. Its base is nearly four miles below sea level though, so it loses out when you only measure the part above sea level. Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania can also lay claim to some part of the prize. It is the worlds tallest free standing mountain (above sea level).

...and no, this isn't a post about mountains.

I've been somewhat moody these last few days. I'm bipolar, it happens. Yesterday was especially bad. Some of you may have seen my—now deleted—whining post from last night.

I spent a lot of time walking and thinking last night. I came to a realization. Then I tried to put that realization into words... as my brain is wont to do, it eventually came up with a couple of analogies. This is where the mountains come in. Really, this isn't a new realization, just a slightly different look at it.

Anyways, here goes...

There are all sorts of emotions... but for the sake of argument, lets squash them into a single continuum, neutral in the middle, good is up, bad is down. Simple enough. We each experience a range of these emotions in our lives, but we spend much of it in a much narrower subrange. This is our comfort zone.

I would argue that I've experienced a wider than normal range of emotions on this scale. That's part of what being bipolar means. Unfortunately for me, most of my experience happens to be on the bad side of the scale. Like Mauna Kea in Hawaii, much of my experience is under sea level, where it doesn't help win me top billing.

To take this a step further, my comfort zone, where I feel most comfortable with myself, like I know myself, happens to be on the wrong side of scale. This makes it somewhat awkward when good things happen, because quite literally, emotionally I am not myself. I don't really know how to deal with it. I have a long history of unconsciously, stabbing myself in the foot when I see good things happening. It's a weird place to be, because consciously, logically, it doesn't make any sense. But still, here it is.

Argh...