ontop: the idea
Bob Schirmer
About the Creator of OnTop Ball Toss
Through the years, just like many of you, I’ve thought of countless ideas, inventions, services, and contraptions that would be useful, or fun, or just cool. My wife would always encourage me to pursue my “dreams”, but I never did because, well, my free time was important to me. Fast forward to 2016. In the summer of 2016, I was a “victim” of downsizing at a company I had worked for many years. I put victim in quotation marks because it's not how I felt at the time of the layoff - I felt free. As though I had been released from prison – finally able to walk away from a job, and a working environment, that made me miserable! With my severance in hand, and a smile on my face, I remember singing Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” as I drove out of the parking lot for the last time. Which is very ironic to me, considering the songs interpretation. My new found freedom, not only brought more creative ideas, but the precious time to see those ideas through. And OnTop was born. OnTop is one of the most inclusive games for those who love friendly competition among family & friends. I am proud of OnTop. Not just because of the fun factor, but of the life lesson it embraces - that despite the challenges, struggles & failures one faces in life, they are never out of the "game of life". That you can flip the script with a single success, and you are not defined by your failures or setbacks but rather how you persevere and overcome them. I guess for most, a layoff is a devastating time. I found it to be the most liberating time in my life, a rebirth if you will – I guess I felt On Top.
Into the Mystic interpretation (from songfacts.com):
This is about a sailor at sea thinking about returning to his lover, who is back on land. Normally a foghorn signals danger, but in this case it means he is close to home and his love.
There is room for interpretation beyond the superficial meaning. It might be interpreted as expressing an understanding that life is finite (the ship sailing on its round trip) and must be lived to its fullest (“I want to rock your Gypsy soul”), and an acceptance of its inevitable end (“We will magnificently float into the mystic, when the foghorn blows I will be coming home”). When you have seen the world and loved someone, you should have no reason to fear the end because you have lived your life to the fullest.