Tennis Ball was just sitting there.
The Battle for Dream Island was a lot of things. It was a lot of things to a lot of people. And it was a lot of things to a lot of people for a long time. It has been both the best and the worst thing to ever happen to them, an event that has completely and utterly changed their lives for better *and* worse. What started as just a silly little competition for some dumb island has turned into so much, gone *so* far beyond what any of them ever thought it would be. They all thought it was gonna be quick and easy; win a few challenges, beat up a few people, win a fancy island, live on it for the rest of one's days without anybody bothering them ever again. But as the years dragged by, as the seasons continued on, it became very, very, *very* clear that that was... *not* going to be the case. For most of them, this was pretty much their entire life. Their every waking moment always revolved around the Battle, on how they'll survive the next episode, how they'll evade elimination, how they'll work with their team, and so on, and so forth. It was the motivator for all their greatest triumphs, their best memories... and *also* their lowest lows, their most horrific and traumatic experiences. The BFDI ran the whole gamut, to put it simply. It was everything, it was *anything*, and it always had something new and different up its sleeve, *especially* whenever they think that they've just about seen it all.
It's a bit hard to appreciate, however, given the large spans of time it has lasted, given how an ever-growing percentage of their lives had the Battle for Dream Island as its one and only focus. This competition has been a part of their lives in *some* way for... a decade, over a decade, maybe even more. Who's keeping track? Well, someone like Tennis Ball probably does, but nobody ever listens to him about that boring nerd stuff; they'll tolerate him *enough* during challenges, and maybe when there really isn't anything to do, but he and all the others just have completely incompatible tastes, incompatible palates. He was cut from the same cloth as Golf Ball, thinking methodically, acting logically, and being completely and utterly obnoxious to everyone else, who desired action and adventure more than *anything* else. Point is, it's a lot of time. Perhaps *too* much time.
And they only ever get to access just a *tiny* sliver of it. Due to the constraints of their universe, the only in moment in time that they're *truly* experiencing is... this very one. The present day. The current period. *This* very second. There were ways they could *approximate* all the other times; their memories give them a window to the past, and they can extrapolate the future from ongoing trends. But those are, again, *approximations*. Despite their best efforts (the sport globules have certainly tried), they are simply unable to capture these moments that have occurred, or are yet to occur. They always look at the past through rose-tinted glasses, or some unexpected surprise will completely invalidate their predictions. The only thing they can know, the only thing they can figure out with absolute certainty, is *now*. The one they are in the middle of living in.
And they can't even do *that* all too well, but that's an entirely different story.
That narrow slice of the universe can fluctuate massively, depending on the circumstances. There are times where it does *feel* like it lives up to its reputation as a vast, awe-inspiring, amazing place full of infinite wonder and endless possibilities, and there are times where it... doesn't. Maybe the world truly just doesn't have anything in store for them that day, or perhaps it was just occurring elsewhere, somewhere where they aren't looking. Then there's the matter of *feeling*; what they're seeing and experiencing could be the greatest thing one could ever experience, a marvel that could never be surpassed by anything in the past or future, but there'd be no point to it if they didn't *feel* amazed. Living beings, despite all their efforts, aren't exactly the best at feeling; all the episodes of the Battle for Dream Island can attest to that. They are largely guided by emotion, not reason. They are largely motivated by their desire for movement, for action, for *something* to happen. Most of the things they do, they don't even need to survive; they're set to live the rest of their lives in relative comfort and ignorance, and yet they constantly find ways to make themselves miserable, missing all the finer details. And that short-sighted perception *definitely* doesn't change things. The BFDI has put up an impossibly high standard, a tremendous bar to overcome and leap over, that anything else just seems completely and utterly *boring* in comparison. The contestants, though having improved in many ways as a result of the competition, have grown worse at this one key aspect: they are unable to appreciate the finer things in life, incapable of taking comfort and refuge in the simplicity and calmness of things.
