What's with all this balance crap?

 

By Joe Walther

 

Humans have an amazing propensity to complicate things. A former professor of mine told me, “The less you know about a problem, the easier it is to solve.” I was just a young snot going to school back then and he was a wise old sage who, I believe, attended the Wright brothers’ first air flight.

 

            Theresa, a 7-year old was explaining to her uncle John how airplanes are able to fly during a trip to Borders Books a couple of days ago. She did a good job, too. Even though she didn’t use the proper “scientific” terminology, she knew how airplanes fly. And, because of her understanding, she said, “I would never be scared to fly, Uncle John.” I loved her simplified explanation.

 

            She did not mention the term “forces” at all. Equally missing from her explanation were some other terms: magnitude, direction, lift, gravity, thrust, and drag. Even so, she understood that the engines and wings had to work together to both get off the ground and stay in the air. Without so much as an inkling into the physics of flying, she displayed an uncanny understanding of the need for balance.

 

            Natural forces govern our lives. We don’t have to understand them; we don’t even have to believe them. We don’t have to get into arguments over whether they are laws or theories. On the other hand, it doesn’t take long for us to find out that it’s not prudent to ignore them, particularly the one about gravity.

 

            First, balance drives everything in the universe. Without it, atoms, the very essence of all matter, could not exist. When an airplane takes flight, nature takes over and the fight for balance begins. The forces of lift, thrust, gravity, and drag must balance. If they do, the plane stays in the air. If not, it crashes to earth. When we fill ice cube trays with water and place them into the freezer, another fight for balance begins. The heat from the water transfers from the water into the surrounding cold.

 

            Second, perhaps a bit difficult to believe, is the fact that nothing in the universe ever disappears. Things simply change form. Matter and energy are all that exist. It’s just as true here on Earth. When we burn leaves, the fire combines the leaves and oxygen to form new gases, small particles of smoke, heat, and light. In fact, someday, my estimate is October 12, in the year 14000002006 at approximately 3 PM; all of the universe’s energy will have changed into matter. If you don’t understand the meaning of, “a cold day in hell,” and you can stick around until this happens, you will then understand it clearly. The Republicans will probably be in the White House, too!

 

            Third, people who refer to the Devil as the Prince of Darkness, as though darkness is a force, are dead wrong. Darkness is not a force, neither is coldness. Only heat and light exist. Take away all of the heat and it gets cold. Take away all of the light and it gets dark. Heat and light equal energy, and energy always goes to where there is less energy until things become balanced. As I tried to explain above, if this were not so, there would never be any ice for scotch on the rocks. Oh, and you might just as well forget about cold beer, too!

 

            I don’t know about the Devil. He may exist. If so, I’m pretty sure that I had a couple of his sisters as teachers back in elementary school. Regardless, if the Devil is relying on cold and darkness as his forces of evil, he’s out of luck, although, as I recall, those sisters of his were colder than a witch’s ti… um, I mean ice.

 

            Fourth and this is particularly difficult to grasp, especially for the absolutists who are constantly telling us to send them money for the Lord’s work, there is more than one truth. In fact, as of this moment, there are at least two truths. Nature as explained by wave energy such as light and radio waves is different from the nature explained by chunks or particles of energy (called quantum).

 

            Scientists are working hard to resolve this. Right now, the buzzwords are “unified theory.” I hardly have time to go the bathroom because this eats up almost all of my time. I can’t think of anything else; well, almost nothing else! I have also been working diligently trying to find out what happens to all of my socks that never come out of the dryer. Even I have to admit that the missing sock thing casts a pall of doubt on the “nothing ever disappears from the universe” part above.

 

            We must not lose track of the fact that the old clock is ticking ever so fast. We need to kick it up a notch or two. October 12, 14000002006 will be here before we know it! I’m probably overly optimistic on the 3 PM estimated time, too. With my luck, it’ll probably happen earlier in the day.

 

            When we really think about it, life is pretty simple. Theresa has the right idea. But, you know, just as I began feeling optimistic in light of her explanation to her uncle, along comes a business graduate student spewing forth, “Is it better to discover shared visions that foster enrollment rather than compliance OR change our conceptual maps to focus on organizational complexity?” SIGH!

 

            Speaking for myself, this sort of academic barf makes me long for the quick arrival of October 12, 14000002006. I’ll be back next week. In the meantime, I’ll be looking for those “missing” socks.

 

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Copyright laws apply to all material on this site. Send your comments. Just click here.