Wise quote from an 11 year old Sheldon Cooper in Young Sheldon whenever people dropped him snarky comments to him.

“Sometimes I imagine that I'm an ion with a positive charge and they're an ion with a negative charge. It's so that whatever they say bounces off me and sticks to them.”

When I first heard this, I had a problem with this quote. In science, positively charged ions (more protons than electrons) are naturally attracted to negatively charged ions (more electrons than protons); it will never bounce off each other. I’m a literal person, so I didn’t get it till I thought deeper.

This quote is a metaphorical expression of Sheldon to convey the idea of not letting negative comments or energy effect oneself. He imagined himself as a positively charged ion and the other person as negatively charged ion. Charged particles repel each other, so in this case the negative comments or energy that’s directed to Sheldon are imagined to bounced off him just like how positively charged ion repel each other and the neagtivity metaphorically “stick” and reflect back to the person instead.

Other way of saying, don’t let negativity affect you and let it stay with the person who projected it. It’s a projection. projection. projection.

Aha, I understand the concept here.

Another metaphorical layer, it’s also possible that oneself is a ninja with a special power who can change his state as an emotional shielding and bounce off whatever that is not serving him.

Now with that ideology, imagine how will it reflect unto us when we say something positively to others? Then, think of when those negative comments and those sarcastic swipes we made, remember it’s a projection, maybe next time we want to learn how to remain silent if we have nothing good to say, eh?

p/s : The ‘ninja with special power’ thingy, it’s probably just an effect of me spending too much time with my husband letting him sitting me down to watch and read Anime, Marvel and DC stuff! Ugh god, I never cared for all these growing up but now I found myself knowing bits of them and even admiring the figurines, what is happening? 😂