414. Gravity

January 24, 2015

Our every thought and action takes place in a field of gravity. In the womb we may not have noticed it so much, but we are born to that field, and are comforted by being held, fed, and warmed at the breast to ease the shock of abruptly having to accommodate to that relentless force on our own.

In time, we learn to lift our heads, press down with our arms, crawl, sit up, toddle, walk, hop, skip, run, dance, and climb, always strengthening ourselves against the pull of gravity, learning to move despite that constant tug that draws us down. We learn to trade new skills for hard knocks, but the threat of falling never goes away.

In time we learn to play games against gravity, our constant opponent. We like being tossed into the air and lovingly caught. We like swinging back and forth, up and down. We learn to use gravity for fun and play, not merely tolerate or work against it. Chasing after balls, kicking, throwing, catching, running, always on the go, we prove our mastery of moving within a gravitational field. Many become famous for their skills at playing against gravity, the same force that weighs the rest of us down.

High-wire balancing, ballet dancing, window washing, pole vaulting, steeple chasing, hurdling, even cheating death by leaping from planes with a parachute or off a bridge on a bungee cord, the adventurous among us thrive by taunting gravity to deter them.

In the process, some achieve a certain lightness of being despite the Earthbound certainty of their lives. Many fly in airplanes high in the sky, another few become astronauts and dare to escape gravity altogether by being thrust into space aboard rockets at the cost of having to bear even sterner forces we call Gs.

With every thought, urge, and emotion existing in a gravitational field, we must account for that fact in advance to avoid falling on our faces when we act. Gravity is a fact of life, of planning and action in living in a gravitational field.

Yet we take that profound fact for granted, and seldom give it a thought. Yes, we smile when baby lifts her head the first time, then crawls, stands, and tries a few steps. But that is what she is supposed to do as a matter of course, so we don’t dwell on it overmuch. Another milestone passed on schedule, oh hum.

Gravity is a fact of nature. We wouldn’t be here if we couldn’t cope with it. In fact, evolution has equipped us with bones, muscles, and tendons that work around gravity’s constant pull, fitting us to defy gravity every second of our lives. Or even to gracefully succumb by sitting or lying down to get some temporary relief.

Gravity and levity, heaviness and lightness, are two of the most obvious poles of our being. Rising and falling, smiling and frowning, feeling good and feeling bad—these are a few of the polarities that generate our minds in the first place. I believe that without gravity, we wouldn’t have evolved as conscious beings. We may have gotten our start in the warm seas of early Earth, but when we clambered onto land we took on gravity full-force, and had to match that challenge rather than float on the surface of life as our watery environment once allowed.

Birds and butterflies go us one better by shedding every spare ounce and leaping off into the air. No wonder we admire monarchs and chickadees so much, and all the others who make defying gravity look so easy. I have spent many a dream laboriously flapping my arms, only to rise into a tangle of power lines without a landing field in sight. I can do it in my dreams, but there’s no joy in doing it, only worry about getting tangled.

Astronauts bounding about on the moon are as close as we can come to the ideal of a life free of gravity. Sailing and hang-gliding are runners-up. Golf offers us the surrogate of a dimpled white ball flying down the fairway, all credit to the driver standing staunchly in his cleated shoes. Basketball, too, offers the swish of a ball downward through the net. And baseball through the trajectory of a well-hit ball of leather.

Too, I would add consciousness itself, which is capable of light thoughts and flights of fantasy. Gravity and levity, I suggest, offer prototypes of the polarities such as heaviness and lightness, sadness and happiness, that kindle consciousness by offering the mind something to chew on, and the life force a challenge worthy of its seating in the nucleus of every cell in our bodies.

After all, it requires huge amounts of energy to work or play games in a stern gravitational field. Levity has been one of our goals from the start. Think of it: that is precisely what we have gained bit-by-bit over the three-and-a-half-billion-year course of evolution.

It was no accident we got where we are today, with gravity-defying minds such as we have. Drawing up our lips and cheeks into a smile, that is how we receive the news that gravity has made us the miracles we are.









