11 – Momentum
There is a certain rapid-fire, reactionary mindset at play during times of great change. The intransigence of weight at velocity: the more mass in is motion, the less its ability to change direction.
(Aside. Since everything is in everything else, use anything as a metaphorical lens to make big things smaller, and small things bigger. When considering mass in motion, please apply this lens to our notional [sic] politics, corporate belligerence, world-as-our-battleground stance. Of course it will fall apart. It is a train that can’t escape the track, can’t escape its wreck, no matter how gradually its approach.)
Generally speaking, I dislike momentum as a property of the Universe. It feels like aging, which isn’t particularly likable, though as a matter of no choice you do get used to it. “But what if I find this trajectory to be soul-stunting?” Well… the answer is… the answer is probably “Sorry”. Or you could take a page from a few friends’ sky-diving playbook: “Just jump”.
The effect momentum has on a moving body, or on a life, isn’t so noticeable until you try to deviate. I’m pedaling a bicycle: pedal pedal pedal. I’m picking up speed. The grasses begin to blur, the wind rises. Oh, I’ve got a downgrade! Shift to higher gears, higher speed. Bend down over the bars, reduce the wind’s drag. Wow, I’m really cranking now!
Try to turn a corner.
Ok, since that metaphor is decidedly antiquated – who moves at the speed of Self these days? – why don’t we add a few cylinders and whole lot of fossil fuel to the picture: why don’t we put ourselves in a car, or in a diesel semi, in a freighter? The more mass at higher velocity, the more your direction is dictated by your past, the longer it will take to jettison some of that oomph, to slow down, to bring your head up, see something other than your speed, see anything at all, change course.
To be less abstract, I feel I’ve changed bearing at a relatively high velocity. Or maybe I am just less flexible then I once was, maybe there are a few more pounds of me moving a few more miles an hour in a steadfastly rooted direction, so that even with many months of forewarning, even it being my own delightful decision to join forces with a Romero, I haven’t quite slowed down enough for the curve, and bit and pieces or belongings or mind are flying off the truck as though stripped by a high wind.
– Oh! I wanted that…. darn.
– My flight is in eleven days? I thought it was twelve!
– Wait! WAIT! Auuugh.
– Ok. Fine.
“Momentum” by kitehiGh @ DeviantArt.com
It doesn’t matter. You do what’s right for your body and your spirit, and knowing what’s right, it’s easier to part with objects, while you draw your people nearer you. The big curves come at you like waves, anyway, whether you pretend you have chosen them, or whether health or love or loss make the physics excruciatingly obvious.
All ‘board!