Inertia
Sean Moore
An object in motion stays in motion, and an object at rest stays at rest.
There are days – and I must admit that they come far too often – when the mass, the gravity of upcoming stuff is so great that not even the greatest exertion could move any of it, at all. When the sheer amount of force, of time, of effort and planning just to get something important moving shuts down not just the project, but everything else at hand. A sinking pit that drags everything down into it, the will to start anything, the desire to be anything, the belief that anything could hope to move again. There are days when that same unmoving feeling is used as a protective barrier, to stave away defeat, to stay rooted in the face of overwhelming opposition.
There are days, too, when action cannot be stopped. Like an ambulance careening down the street, it clears everything from it’s path; it’s all you can do to get out of the way. There are days when you can use the wake this caterwauling emergency vehicle makes to breeze through the gridlock of obstructions that were previously in your way. And, there are days when that very same ambulance keeps you pulled over, mired down.
In either case, inertia can be such a limiting factor in our lives. In the form of immovable object, or an unstoppable force, inertia can drag us down, can keep us standing right where we belong, can pull us along to where we need to be, or make us flee in the opposite direction.
The inertia I find most fearful are the unmovable barriers. When something is moving, even in the opposite direction of where I want to be, I can at the very least act: move out of the way, or push back against it, or be valiantly flattened, or at the very least run as fast as I can. Action, even when it is the wrong action, at the very least gives the illusion of purpose.
The towering walls of static inertia, on the other hand, often make me crumble. It’s a fear of the unknown – what will it take to overcome, what amount of time, what skills, what tools, what secrets have those that have come before me used? What’s worse still, is that I find these barriers are all too common in the world; we are shaped by the things in life we cannot hope to move. These walls engender inaction, inaction gives rise to despair, and despair gives rise to inertia within yourself.
And yet, if we choose not to accept inaction, there are ways to overcome those boundaries we find ourselves facing down. Willpower cannot move mountains, but it can stir our hearts into action, or give us the strength we didn’t know we had to move the obstruction we didn’t know could be lifted. Sometimes, it’s as simple as asking the fit person the right question; other times it’s putting the fulcrum in the right place and applying the right force; others, still, it’s taking the winding path around whatever is in our way, our having the courage to make our own route. Perhaps most important though, is to recognize that not all objects can be moved. Instead, we must wait for time to erode the boulders that block us.
The world around us exists as barriers, large and small. They come into our lives, out of chance, or from our choices, or from others before us intent on stopping progress.
But inertia doesn’t exist to stop us. It exists to make sure that the right people overcome the right things.