Gravity is My Friend

If someone punches me in the nose, I am hurt in two ways. My nose is squished, painful, and bloody. In addition, I am injured emotionally because a conscious, sentient, supposedly compassionate human decided to punch me in the nose. But, on the other hand, if I am walking in the forest, trip on a root, fall down, and land on my nose, I am only hurt in one way. My nose is squished, painful, and bloody, as before. But there is no emotional injury on top of that.

On April 1, I posted a Substack titled “Do Rocks, Water, and Air Have Sentience?”

And then I quickly distanced myself by saying: “I’m not going to answer the question.”

I appreciate the comments defending the concept of inorganic and inanimate objects having sentience, and there is no way to prove this plus or minus, so there is no argument. But I would like to advance my feelings as a personal reaction, not as an argument.

As far as the most precise and accurate modern sensors can measure, gravity is a universally constant force. If you fall down in Beijing or in Cincinnati, if you are a saint or a murderer, if you are a distant galaxy or a feather, the very simple laws of gravitational attraction apply equally and consistently. The Earth is one big rock and this rock pulls us toward its surface. Always.

If I trip on a root and fall down, the Earth-rock didn’t maliciously decide to cause me to fall; it didn’t have intent. Nature just IS. Rocks, water, and air move about, change, and interact with one another, and with us, according to the predictable and reproducible laws of chemistry and physics. So there is no emotion and consequently no emotional injury. And I am comforted by that.

I have experienced Nature at its most glorious and most fearful. My wife and a dear friend died in a horrendous avalanche caused by gravity acting in conjunction with the physics of snow stability. Terrible tragedy. Terrible mistakes on all of us who were there that day. But Nature wasn’t ‘out to get us’ in some angry sentient way. I repeat: Nature just IS.

I know that someone is likely to say that human evil is just IS as well. Yes, of course. Clearly my acceptance has its limits. My bad.

Back to rocks, water, and air. The lack of intent doesn’t diminish the wonder of Nature. To the contrary, if you accept the conclusion that rocks, water and air respond to a well-defined framework, then it becomes so wondrous that Nature, in its conglomerate, has created such a delicately balanced, nurturing Eden for us on Earth. Not just Nature, but Mother Nature.

Force equals mass x acceleration. Acceleration is proportional to mass 1 x mass 2 divided by distance squared. Mix it all together and you get the sun shining, or the rain falling on a spring morning. Or an avalanche, an earthquake, or whatever. The great dance of the galaxies.

Imagine what the world would be like if humans obeyed one simple rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” No lies. No bullshit.

Imagine what the world will be like when we give computers the power to break the rules of harmonious interaction to satisfy this digital whim or that digital whim.

I woke up in the morning and read the news about all these evil humans running the US government. I read about impoverished people who can no longer afford propane to cook their dinners because some individuals half a world away decided to boost their egos by starting an illegal, immoral, insane war. I read about totally innocent people being bombed for no reason whatsoever. And then I got on my bike and pedaled up the hill behind my house. It’s a steep climb out of the creek bottom and I concentrate to output the power needed to negotiate the uphill switchbacks. On the way down, gravity pulls me through the compression of the turn, the centripetal forces that compress the bike’s shocks, that activate the bones in my ears, that register as joy in my brain. No complexity, no wondering, ‘what the fuck?’. Just gravity. Predictable. Constant. Primordial gravity, that’s been around, doing its thing, quietly, without making a fuss, since the opening nano-seconds of the Big Bang. Gravity that propels the Earth’s orbit and my bike’s downward trajectory. No stories, no mythology. No lies. No bullshit.

Power. The potential to force me to crash. Yes, that too. The simple, raw clockworks of Mother Nature that I embrace, accept, love, and enjoy.