The Force

It was a few days ago that I felt it for the first time. I was on the ground, sweating on a yoga mat in a room with an exceptionally dry and hot climate. The people around me were trying to make it tropical with their sweat. Lying there, inhaling the smells of dubious quality, I felt it for the first time. 

Gravity.

Yes, it is quite peculiar indeed. To only feel gravity for the first time in your life at the age of thirty-seven. But I’ve never been particularly good or interested in physics. The idea of a chair pressing against my butt while I sit on it never sounded convincing to me. To me, force is action rather than passive resistance. A chair being thrown at me in a fit of anger - yes, however unwelcome, this is a true manifestation of force. But one which stood in the corner before I sat on it and will still stand there after I get up? One that stayed totally unmoved while I was on it? Does it show any force in action? 

Not to me, but I haven’t managed to convince anyone so far. Nevertheless I’ll try to convince you, for this last time. Believe me, my doubts are a product of careful consideration rather than scientific ignorance. How could an innocent and inanimate chair exert any force on my behind? 

But last Tuesday I experienced The Force empirically. Something was definitely pushing me. It wasn’t just me lying there, and naturally sticking to the floor rather than the ceiling. My body was being pushed by an external invisible force. This is, strangely, how it felt.

Only it wasn’t the floor that was pushing me. No, the floor was there, cold despite the 40 degrees in the room, hard and unmoved. Passively resisting my body being pressed against it by a flock of invisible arms of gravity. 

My thoughts wandered away into our planet’s atmosphere, which is basically all the gases being pushed in one direction by the same force that was pushing me. How extraordinary. It bothers to push me down on the floor, so that I don’t float away in the air just as much as it bothers to keep all the gases  enveloping Earth where they are. 

If you want freedom from that omnipresent force, there’s still outer space. To get there, you need to be very strong. Getting back   on Earth should be more relaxed though -  after all, gravity will lovingly take you into her arms, in the hope of not letting you go away any more. 

In that hope it will make sure you’re properly pushed down next time you do your exercise. So that you remember how difficult it is to get up, let alone get away for a weekend in outer space.