celestial mechanics

Have you remembered to practice the Discipline of Eating today? What about the Discipline of Breathing? Perhaps over the past few days you've mused, "I know that I really should get around to `going to the bathroom', but I'm just so busy..." and you even feel a bit about guilty not having done this.

What's that you say? Hmmm. Why is that?

Right. These "bodily functions" give us very strong messages when these "needs" of ours are not met. (Good thing, too!)

Now, what about other "good" practices in our life, things that bring life to us --- prayer, acts of service, worship, reading edifying material, exercise, meditation? Are we not told that "every word that comes from the mouth of God" is at least as important as "bread"?

Right again. When these "higher" needs are neglected, rather than feeling a strong urge to do them, we feel LESS attraction toward them as they go neglected and as we become distracted by other things.

Being a physicist, I'm inclined to think up mathematical models for things that happen, so let me throw out a couple for ya:

Physical needs could be (roughly) modeled via a spring force (a "harmonic oscillator" if you will). As the distance from equilibrium (i.e. the length of time the need has gone unmet) increases, so does the attraction --- the force --- increase toward restoring the body to equilibrium. (You could even have it be a funny spring with a force that increases faster than linearly.)

Spiritual needs or "disciplines" might be described better by a gravitational interaction --- still attractive at all finite distances, but decreasing as you go farther and farther out from the Source of the attraction. Like this.

This gravitational model suggests further analogies with "orbits" of people in life, a behavioral kind of "celestial mechanics". Some people orbit very close to the Source, they're tightly "bound" and their energy is "kinetic" --- active and efficacious. Other people orbit further out, and exhibit more "potential" for real work than for actually making a difference ("Apart from Me you can do nothing..."). Some people have circular orbits, other people may have highly elliptical orbits --- moving very close to the source for a short time, then moving away for long times in a periodic succession. There are even people on parabolic or hyberpolic orbits, who have only one interaction with the Source their whole lives, but they will not bind to it and move off alone, increasingly with nothing to orbit but themselves, toward eternal nothingness.

If we include General Relativity, then each of the orbiting bodies is also losing what I'll call "self-energy", losing it in the form of gravitational waves. It's the interaction with the Source that causes this. This loss of self-energy results in orbits which bind tighter and tighter to the Source, until eventually, the orbit is finished and the body finally becomes one with the Source. (For a black hole source, this results in the body passing through the event horizon, never to be seen in the physical world again.)

....We could keep milking these analogies, but I'll stop there. I guess what I'm wondering is, does having some high-fallutin' model like this really help us be more likely to practice meeting our spiritual needs?

...MMMMmmmmmmm...Nah. BUT, knowing they are true needs like the physical ones, should take some of the "compulsion" and "guilt" out of doing or not doing them, respectively.

Actually sometimes I *do* have to remember to eat. Like....now. Cheers.
-Scott

go out and play

Om Malik writes about "Internet Anxiety Disorder," something related to Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder. Malik describes me, and probably you as well, dear reader. So, we'll defer today's blog to someone who said it better than me. Malik's post is here.

I'm going out to play.

Oh no, wait, I have to work today. Well then, you go out and play.
-Scott