Through Movement and

change. We’re going to do this very free form style and just sort of roll with what comes up, because I’m seeing the physics of movement as applicable to the metaphorical, spiritual and metaphysical movement of bodies. Motion in the physical world can be calculated using one of a number of equations involving consistent variables: distance traveled, initial position, initial velocity, final position, final velocity, time between initial and current states, and constant acceleration (where most bodies fall under the acceleration of gravity). The reason that there are so many equations involving motion is because it depends on the knowns to determine which equation is most appropriate to solve for the unknowns.

Calibrating instruments in an effort for maximum accuracy, the instruments of my trade are the pen and ink, pencil and lead, computer and keys, the body and brain and all of them need constant maintenance for optimal efficiency. Complicated notions of erratic motion can be solved with a little bit of hard work and the appropriate equation—but beware of using the inappropriate equation as this can lead to inaccurate answers. You have to ask the most appropriate question, you see, in order to get the most appropriate answer. I’m moving! I’m moving! I’m moving! But what, ye gods, will be my final velocity in comparison to my initial velocity and how far will I go, how fast will I travel there, and where the hell am I, and where will I be.

For example, let’s say we have one of those high bounce balls that you get from the machine outside the grocery store for twenty-five cents (I guess there about fifty cents now, but anyway…). We want to know the distance traveled by this ball as it bounces, but all we know is the initial velocity and how long it bounced. Not a problem. Let’s take: vf=vi + aΔt, where the final velocity is found by taking the sum of the initial velocity and the product of the acceleration and the time. If we’re dealing with a dropped ball, and it bounced for two seconds, then the final velocity would be 2m/s (our known from the beginning) + g (gravity, 9.8 m/s2) * 3 seconds which gives us 2 m/s + 29.4 m/s = 31.4m/s as the final velocity. Then we just plug that guy and all our other knowns into the equation d=1/2(vi+vf)Δt. The distance traveled is then 1/2(31.4+2)3 = 50.1 meters.

I have come so far from the boy I was in my youth—my mantra, it seems, along with “the act reveals the subconscious desire” and “only act, the future is unknowable”…I guess I’m working on a collection of aphorisms, but I feel like it’s important for a man to have at least one aphorism attached to his name, but to return—and the distance traveled has been so great it is nearly impossible to calculate. Although I know I feel like I have lately been traveling at a much greater velocity than any time previous and now I know that this is mainly as a result of the way my life is being lived, which is to say fast and hard. If production is the distance is the outcome of the equation, then I guess I have to feel pretty good about what I have accomplished and am going to accomplish. The pace of existence is largely determined by our circadian rhythms and how our day is structured to help us complete any variety and number of tasks. A simple map can tell us how far we are traveling, and a speedometer can tell us how fast we’re going at any given time, and a clock will tell us how long, but what of acceleration. Is acceleration desire? Put the metal to the pedal to the other metal, Bender, and get us out of here! It’s funny that the one general constant in the physical world is a true variable in the metaphysical based on what we want and illustrated through the way we act.

The details of the trip are as complicated as possible, and for good reason. Stage one: flight to base. It will be an early morning red-eye that we board bleary-eyed from the ingestion of chemical lubricants and then will be promptly missed as a result of lubricant-induced slumber. Stage two: procure automotive transport unit and use it to cross twelve-hundred miles in one revolution of the earth around the sun—and we all know how I feel about revolution—during which it will be an all out burn down the interstate of youth to it’s termination/initiation point. Stage three: old business. When the automotive transport unit comes to a stop at the destination, the clock is already well under-way, and time is running thinner and thinner, and there are so many things to do. Stage four: wander back to base. The idea here is that the only truly appropriate way to understand how far we really travel is to take control of the means.

I moved to New York City two and one-half years ago from Kansas City, Missouri. In nine days I am moving back to Kansas City. There were hiccups in the process, given the expenses of a moving van, but it turns out the cheapest way we can find to get everything back effectively is to fly to Kansas City, rent a car, drive it back to New York City, load it up, and drive it back. The plan, right now, and there are those saying of best laid and mice and men, is that we’ll burn out to the coast, spend a couple of days, and then meander our way back. In a way it’s like a grand metaphor for what happened here in the city. When one gets to New York City it is an all-out sprint, and while one is here the race is consistently moving. The only way to bust out is to take control of the race and make your way at your own pace. When mental and physical capacities are running rapidly at all times with barely any pause, it is only a short time before you run out of gas or throw a rod or step on some glass or otherwise need to reach equilibrium.

Movement is a change. You cannot run away from your problems. This is true. Your problems will be with you wherever you are, but by moving you are changing… something. You can never know what that change will mean. You cannot know how far it will take you. You cannot know the future. But by changing the meaning of one variable, the entire equation changes and the outcomes are all different. It’s kind of like mathematical randomness, because change makes anything possible in math, and anything means that any random point will be the result of the new trajectory. When desiring something new, it is important to change something, otherwise there will never be anything new (you would, after all, simply be recycling the same old equation with the same old plug-ins), and that is counterproductive to the desire (i.e. change). Changing something illustrates the desire for change.

Here we are then, changing things, altering trajectories, and feeling more in control of the previously erratic. It’s a revolution of the mind, of the body, and of the spirit. Maybe I’ll grow my hair out again, I thought…