[00:00.00] 作曲 : Pellegrino, Walker
[00:03.492]The 50-Percent  Theory  of  Life
[00:07.518]I  believe  in  the 50-percent  theory.
[00:09.578]Half  the  time  things  are  better  than  normal;
[00:15.77]the  other  half,they  re  worse.
[00:17.375]I  believe  life  is  a  pendulum  swing.
[00:21.500]It  takes  time  and  experience  to  understand  what  normal  is,
[00:27.251]and  that  gives  me  the  perspective  to  deal  with  the  surprises  of  the  future.
[00:33.627]Let ’s  benchmark  the  parameters:yes,I  will  die.
[00:37.750]I ’ve  dealt  with  the  deaths  of  both  parents,
[00:41.126]a  best  friend,a  beloved  boss  and  cherished  pets.
[00:42.610]Some  of  these  deaths  have  been  violent,before  my  eyes,
[00:46.670]or  slow  and  agonizing.Bad  stuff,
[00:49.857]and  it  belongs  at  the  bottom  of  the  scale.
[00:53.546]Then  there  are  those  high  points:
[00:56.110]romance  and  marriage  to  the  right  person;
[00:57.100]having  a  child  and  doing  those  Dad  things  like  coaching  my  son ’s  baseball  team,
[01:06.790]paddling  around  the  creek  in  the  boat  while  he ’s  swimming  with  the  dogs,
[01:11.974]discovering  his  compassion  so  deep  it  manifests  even  in  his  kindness  to  snails,
[01:15.912]his  imagination  so  vivid  he  builds  a  spaceship  from  a  scattered  pile  of  Legos.
[01:20.225]But  there  is  a  vast  meadow  of  life  in  the  middle,
[01:20.940]where  the  bad  and  the  good  flip-flop  acrobatically.
[01:22.822]This  is  what  convinces  me  to  believe  in  the 50-percent  theory.
[01:26.882]One  spring  I  planted  corn  too  early  in  a  bottomland  so  flood-prone  that  neighbors  laughed.
[01:31.131]I  felt  chagrined  at  the  wasted  effort.
[01:33.322]Summer  turned  brutal---the  worst  heat  wave  and  drought  in  my  lifetime.
[01:37.381]The  air-conditioned  died;the  well  went  dry;
[01:39.818]the  marriage  ended;the  job  lost;the  money  gone.
[01:42.820]I  was  living  lyrics  from  a  country  tune---music  I  loathed.
[01:46.72]Only  a  surging  Kansas  City  Royals  team  buoyed  my  spirits.
[01:48.944]Looking  back  on  that  horrible  summer,
[01:51.68]I  soon  understood  that  all  succeeding  good  things  merely  offset  the  bad.
[01:54.696]Worse  than  normal  wouldn ’t  last  long.I  am  owed  and  savor  the  halcyon  times.
[01:59.443]The  reinvigorate  me  for  the  next  nasty  surprise  and  offer  assurance  that  can  thrive.
[02:03.882]The 50-percent  theory  even  helps  me  see  hope  beyond  my  Royals ’recent  slump,
[02:08.382]a  field  of  struggling  rookies  sown  so  that  some  year  soon  we  can  reap  an  October  harvest.
[02:13.446]For  that  on  blistering  summer,the  ground  moisture  was  just  right,
[02:16.945]planting  early  allowed  pollination  before  heat  withered  the  tops,
[02:19.945]and  the  lack  of  rain  spared  the  standing  corn  from  floods.
[02:23.258]That  winter  my  crib  overflowed  with  corn---fat,
[02:23.816]healthy  three-to-a-stalk  ears  filled  with  kernels  from  heel  to  tip---while  my  neighbors ’
[02:27.502]fields  yielded  only  brown,empty  husks.
[02:29.378]Although  plantings  past  may  have  fallen  below  the 50-percent  expectation,
[02:30.31]and  they  probably  will  again  in  the  future,
[02:33.594]I  am  still  sustained  by  the  crop  that  flourishes  during  the  drought.