I was watching the National Geographic: Amazing Planet series the other day, channeling my inner rock nerd. Having a geology minor from university, and a rock/crystal collection, I enjoy the physical science of the earth and its processes. I don’t know why, but I always have been a big science and math nerd.
From the documentary series, I learned that Yellowstone is basically just a super volcano, overdue for an explosion which would potentially have disastrous results. The last super volcano that erupted was in Sumatra, Indonesia, and changed life on earth forever.
Yellowstone erupts every 600,000 years, and it’s been 640,000 years since its last eruption. Any minute now… If the Yellowstone volcano erupts in my lifetime, no matter where on earth I am, ash would be spewed forth into the atmosphere, obscuring the sun, causing temperatures around the globe to overcome global warming by plunging dramatically. The water cycle would generate acid rain from all the sulfur particles in the air, killing plant life, and possibly forcing humans to the edge of extinction.
When I was in college, someone I barely knew who lived in my apartment complex and had a crush on my roommate gave me a book to read. It was called Earth Abides, about a post-apocalyptic earth. It just reinforced that notion that despite all things man-made that permeate our every day life, the forces of earth are stronger than any of us. A layer of dust will always settle over the top layer, burying us if left untouched and unmoved. The earth will always move on, with or without you, with or without humans, and matter will come together, fall apart, and energy will neither be created nor destroyed, but transferred back and forth for an infinite amount of time. But no time and no place will ever be as it is now.
The series went on call Tokyo and San Francisco, cities on the cusp of the Ring of Fire and at the earth’s major subduction zones, “Cities waiting to die.” Morbid much? I guess by being a San Francisco resident, I’m tempting fate simply by living here. When the pacific plate finally folds from the pressure of the spreading sea floor in the Atlantic, and curls inward to the earth’s core, this city will possibly disappear from existence. It calls to mind the lyrics of “Pompeii” by Bastille, about the destruction Mt. Vesuvius had on that ancient city when it erupted:
“And the walls kept tumbling down
In the city that we love
Great clouds roll over the hills
Bringing darkness from above
But if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
Nothing changed at all?
And if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
You’ve been here before?”
It’s happened before, and it can happen again.
Also in this documentary series, and reminding me of previous lessons from my geology courses in college, they discussed the Coriolis effect: wind and water (“wasser” in German, in case you were wondering) on the earth’s surface push away from the equator in a clockwise motion in the northern hemisphere and in a counter-clockwise motion in the southern hemisphere. Caused by angular velocity interacting with the earth simply rotating on its axis, this compound centrifugal force affects both water currents and wind currents. These currents feed typhoons that form over the Pacific Ocean, and hurricanes over the Atlantic Ocean. This also shows how ships can get stuck in the doldrums at the equator where the opposing wind and water currents meet in tranquil, stagnant harmony.
To pursue somewhat of a tangent, I love this song by Nelly Furtado, Força. It speaks to other forces beyond the physical in life. Enjoy. (Pause for effect.)
Without gravity, inertia, water, an atmosphere, and most importantly, time, none of this would be possible. Every single waking moment, and even in our sleeping ones too, we are constantly enacted upon by the forces that be. Some pressure is building while others are releasing. One thing starts going right in life, and 2 more fall apart. Creation and destruction is an ongoing process of renewal. It’s life and death and everything.
Inner turmoil can be likened to the planet, or vice versa, we can animate the planet earth by calling it a living organism on its own with its geologic processes. In many ways, an individual is like the earth. We have hot spots, areas where things build under the surface that could lead to catastrophic destruction (maybe it’s anger or sadness). We have our own subduction zones where we curl into ourselves and pull something in and under the surface never to see the light of day again. We have areas where we are spreading, growing, and new things are pouring out of us into the world. So much happens at our very core, at the center of the force, and what we see is only just floating on the surface. Circumstances are such that the tectonic plates on the surface of the earth statistically cannot be in the same position moving in the same directions, looking at they do right now. There is no moment like now. We will never be the same as we are now, too. I don’t know how it gets any realer than that.
I have my own Coriolis effect happening too. One part of me wants desperately to move, to travel, to see more of the world than I’ve ever seen. One part of me wants to put down some roots, call a place home for the long haul, and make a life more stable than I currently have. Part of me wants routine while the other yearns for controlled chaos. The forces that be, the pressures of life, and wanting it all, all coalesce together in a place that both tears me asunder and completes me, and where I’m paralyzed with inaction somewhere in the middle. I’m not fully committed, but I’m not fully free either. “This is our last dance, this is ourselves… under pressure.”
I’m in my own form of the doldrums. I’m planning a two month vacation that isn’t really what I want yet everything I want at once. I am both unsatisfied and completely ecstatic. The realities of my situation sink in, that it would be unwise to quit a career and job I’ve been building for over 10 years, but if I am not happy and want more, I should quit the job to move on and allow myself to find something else for the next chapter of my life that will bring me more happiness and satisfaction. Yet to some extent, happiness is not about getting more or something different. Sometimes it’s simply beginning to want what you’ve got. Why can’t I just be satisfied with things the way they are. Why must I feel the urge to destroy what I’ve built and start over? I must be crazy.
It’s a vicious cycle of Catch 22’s, so many finer details intersecting where the opposing forces meet. It looks calm, but it’s truly storming at a level we can’t see. What appears to be stable and calm is really just vibrating so quickly and building up energy that before we know it, the introduction of the smallest unstoppable force to an immovable object can set forth a series of events that leads to… well, a change in life as we know it.
There is a holding pattern, where the positive reinforcement and negative feedback effects intersect that is supposed to be equilibrium… but how permanent can it be once you’ve found it with the interaction of these forces over time? I would maintain that we are constantly in a state of disarray, whatever the opposite of equilibrium is.
There is always an imbalance in the force. The forces act on all of us, and we too are the forces for others. The force was strong with Anakin Skywalker, and people say, “May the force be with you.” “May the odds be ever in your favor.” How can that be? The forces are always opposing? Does it matter which side you’re on or if you’re in the middle? Perhaps that where perspective comes in. There is a tangent here of good vs. evil and what determines which of the forces get labelled as such. But I’m not going down that rabbit hole right now. Feel free to explore it on your own, and discuss.
I marvel at how much calmer it must be to be in a state of equilibrium on an issue with two strongly opposing sides. I wouldn’t know. I can’t help but think how unachievable true homeostasis and stability over time is. With so many forces acting upon us, once we find that balance, how hard it is to maintain, as the forces push in on us everywhere, and we must puff ourselves out and push back to oppose them.
idigres 