Reactions

Newton moves…. forcefully?

Newton’s laws (abbreviated) are as follows:

1. A body in motion remains in motion until some
   force acts upon it to stop it.
2. Acceleration is directly proportional and
   parallel to force and inversely proportional to mass.
3. Every action has an equal but opposite reaction.

This is what comes to mind as I
reflect on the events of the past weeks. I’m not entirely sure why, because I’m
terrible at physics. The things I remember from that class are that we used slinkies
and projectiles and my teacher has an Albanian accent. Do the laws of what is
physical apply to life non-physically? I’ve been enjoying myself seeing how
what I do in my various classes relates to what happens in the world around. It’s
easy to see in things like Accounting (debit studying expense, credit sleep)
and Voice Class (Stop forcing and rely on the breath you have), but more difficult
with things like Geography. I guess I could say that when we aren’t taking care
of relationships properly, we tend to flood them with nutrients that they don’t
need. Really what they need is just to be taken care of, not extra of the
goodness that should come naturally. If they get too much of these unnecessary
nutrients they start having a negative effect on the surrounding riparian
environment. I experienced this analogy this week.

My friend and I
have been “off”. We get frustrated around each other and this pent up
frustration was making us both feel guilty, but we wouldn’t talk about it.
Instead of trying to give the other what they needed, we pretended everything
was okay and tried harder to be loving towards one another. This did not work.
Eventually the weight of this grudge slowed everything to a stop and we couldn’t
function as friends without ticking each other off when we were around each
other so often that we avoided each other. What we wanted was for things to get
better on their own. What we needed was to talk it out, to put force in the
direction of reparation. So we did. Now we are accelerating in a different
direction. A better one. As soon as I started thinking about Newton’s laws, I
thought about this situation and how his laws had applied to my friend and me.
We needed something to physically force this passive-aggression to stop and
turn around.

But that’s
almost a stretch. Here’s where this connection stemmed from. A close friend and
I were trying to burn some memories and we decided that the safest place to do
it, legally and safely, was near the James. So we went, with some other people,
to set fire to these two articles that we would let burn on some rocks, which
usually don’t catch fire unless covered in gasoline, and then we’d kick them
into the river if and only if they became a hazard to the surrounding riparian
zone. Problem: someone in our group misinterpreted and decided that was
littering and he wouldn’t stand for it. Second Problem: he decided his solution
to that problem was to cover the paper with gasoline and burn it on the river
bank (near dry leaves and twigs…) pouring lemonade on our inferno in the event
that it got out of hand. 10 oz of lemonade vs. potentially flaming countryside?
But I’m not here to make the odds. So, naturally as any wise person would, my
friends took issue with his logic and decided to tell him so. (Yes, that’s our
Third Problem). And thus began a battle of equal but opposite actions and
reactions. This is what was happening emotionally. But personally I was
thinking about the James. If every action has an equal but opposite reaction
then shouldn’t there be something reacting in the river? Is it chemical, is it
displacement? I was also thinking about GreenPeace and all people who have an opinion
about anything. If those people go out and declare the “right way” to do
things, shouldn’t there be an equal but opposite reaction moving in the
direction of the “wrong way” which appears right to someone else? If this were
true then we’d all just keep our mouths shut about everything in order to
maintain what has been constantly in motion and not create opposing forces.

This is just something
to think about when you want to reflect on the world around you.