I’ve heard it said that there are only two people in the world that understand gravity. I certainly am not one of them. So I’m not quite sure where this writing is going……..
I think that I have gotten glimpses of what gravity must be like. Still, I don’t know if my impressions of gravity are based on anything real. Perhaps they are the result of our collective imagination, certainly of mine.
I think that gravity has something to do with my own mass and how close I am to another entity with greater or less mass. Gravity possibly has something to do with our relative mass.
When I saw astronauts bouncing around on the Moon, I became aware that I might weigh less on the moon. My own mass might not change, but the mass of the moon is less than the mass of the earth. The effect of moon gravity might be less than what I experience on Earth, if ever I should go to the Moon.
A poet has told me that I would also weigh less on some of the planets circling the Sun along with the Earth. However, on Jupiter I would be as ponderously weighty as an elephant. Is this all about the effect of relative mass or are there other factors at work?
I think that distance is also related to the effect of gravity. If I would ever climb a mountain, I am convinced that I would weigh slightly less than if I were at the seashore. I would be slightly removed from the mass of the Earth, and the effect of gravity would be less.
Astronauts in the space station are not only removed from the mass of the earth but they are also moving at great speeds relative to the earth. They float and seem to be beyond the effect of gravity. The space station meanwhile seems tethered to the Earth, its speed not being sufficient to move its mass beyond the reaches of Earth gravity.
The speed of the space station is a lot less than the speed of the earth around the sun. The speed of the earth around the sun is four times the speed of the space station. The mass of the Sun and the Earth are both great, and though the Earth is orbiting the sun at slightly over 66,000 miles per hour, it is still adequately attracted to the Sun that it doesn’t shoot out of the solar system.
This attraction between bodies, large and small, is something I see in how gravity affects how those bodies relate. Each body bends space in its own way, and that affects how the bodies relate. Sometimes bodies run into one another because of this attraction, as when my feet hit the ground any time I am no longer suspended above the Earth. The grip of the attraction lessens if one of the bodies moves faster relative to the other. I no longer have a static relationship with the Earth if I take off running. By running, I seem to lessen a tiny amount of the attractive force between the Earth and me.
I wonder if this attractive force between bodies exists between bodies that otherwise seem to be static, at rest. Does a kind of gravity exist between a tree and me, between another person and me? Is gravity, this attractive force a “given” through all entities in the universe. Do all things have a desire, a yearning, an attraction to all other entities in their vicinity?
I think that, like gravity, desire is a universal law and it applies to all things. It is a characteristic woven into the fabric of the universe. Desire, like gravity, is the underlying force field in which all of us, and all entities, are involved. It is the force that draws all things to constantly try to move together and become one.
Is it too much of a reach to say that gravity is simply the desire that exists between all things? As I am constantly affected by gravity, I am also constantly affected by the desire of all things around me. We are constantly locked in the embrace of desire.