It's A Relativity Thing

   

The semester is ending. It’s been a great semester for me on many levels.  Great things have happened and greater things are about to happen. I can feel it in my bones. I can’t say its been the best semester for me in terms of attending lectures. But when was it?  

I usually don’t attend that many lectures & end up getting high scores anyways.

Anyhow, let’s get down to it, shall we?

Few weeks ago I ran into a friend, we talked, joked, and exchanged the latest updates and before we both went on our ways he said ‘’I know there’s something bothering you, so what’s up?’’ I confirmed that nothing is bothering me and that was it. Or so I thought.

Yesterday I met a friend for coffee, and she kept asking me how I was doing as if she knew something that I didn't know, I insisted that I’m doing just fine and preparing for my finals, and after chatting for a good hour she said: ‘’Even though you’ve given me three good news, I believe you’re not okay’’ The only reply I had in me at that point was ‘’I’m not okay, I’m fantastic’’. We departed after that.

Today I ran into a colleague we were both in a hurry so it was just a quick Salam and a hug but that didn’t stop her from saying ‘’I have a feeling that you’re not okay’’ now at the moment I wanted to explode and ask her why does everyone seem to think that lately? Do I have a dark halo over my head? Or do I walk dragging myself with misery? Instead I smiled and told her that everything is fine and that she might be feeling this way because it was time for finals and everyone’s nervous. 

I headed to the bus that will take me home, sat down, put on what my friends call ‘’Shakoosh Face’’ so no one in the bus would annoy me with their meaningless ‘’get to know you'' chat. I opened my purse to look for my headphones, didn’t find them. I looked to see if I brought my novel, didn’t find that either. So I was forced to sit alone with my torturous thoughts for the whole drive home which is an HOUR.

I started thinking why does everyone seems to believe I’m sad, depressed, not okay whatever the expression their insistence was equal. I kept thinking and thinking and thinking, ‘’digging deep’’ as my friend Rana calls it, she always tells me ‘’Dig deeper and you will know why, you need to know the reason to start to know how to fix it’’ I dug as deep as I can, couldn’t find a single reason, then my head started spinning with headache and an image of the moon rotating around the Earth suddenly appeared before me, but why?

I imagined myself as the moon and the problem I was so determined to figure out was the Earth. I was rotating around the problem trying to explore what the hell it was. That’s why my head started to spin and my heart was racing and my breathing started to escalate

Then I thought, why am I forcing myself to spin around a problem? Maybe it doesn’t exist, but even if it does, rotating around it only gave me a headache.

You’d think I would stop rotating around the problem and start doing something normal sane people would do when they’re in a bus, look outside the window.
 I didn’t.

Instead I replaced the problematic Earth with the Sun, which to me symbolizes positive thinking, and started to imagine myself rotating around the sun, faster faster faster! The faster I imagined myself orbiting around the Sun the calmer I felt, my heart has slowed, so did my breathing and the headache didn’t feel as bad.

Down to Science.

Einstein said that space and time are interconnected like a fabric.

And that explained what Newton called ‘’Gravity’’. We were taught in school that gravity is a force that differs according to the distance between the bodies and their masses . Einstein with his theory of General Relativity explained that gravity is not a force.

‘’Think of a heavy rock placed on a bed. The rock, of course will sink into the bed. Now shoot a tiny marble over the bed. The marble will not move in a straight line but in a curved line around the rock’’- 

Space-Time Continuum (click here for more info)

'’Now replace the rock with the sun, the marble with the earth, and the bed with space and time. Newton would say that an invisible force called gravity pulls the earth around the sun. Einstein would reply that there is no gravitational pull at all. The earth is deflected around the sun because the curvature of space itself pushing the earth. In a sense, gravity dose not pull, but space pushes.’’

-Einstein's Cosmos a book by Dr. Michio KaKu's book 

Now you may find yourself wondering why am I throwing Einstein and Newton in your face, or what it has to do with what I’m trying to say, I’ll tell you.

Let’s replace the rock, marble, and bed with something else shall we?

Imagine your life is the bed (space time fabric), you are the marble (Earth) and your thoughts, decisions, actions, emotions are the rock (Sun)

Life is curved, we’ve established that, and I’m sure we all faced that at some point in our lives. But it’s you who should decide which curve to rotate around, It can either be the happy optimistic sun, or you can orbit a black hole of self destructive actions. Knowing that a black hole is in fact much more powerful and it bends space-time at a greater curvature than our sun does, simply because it’s much more massive.

So it’s up to you, you have to decide.

It’s simple.

The Sun or a Black hole?
''A black hole is an object whose gravitational pull is so great that nothing-not even light- can escape from it. A black hole forms when a massive star dies and collapse under it's own mass. Some black holes, billions of times more massive than the sun'' - The Night Sky a book by Glies Sparrow

Click here for explanation!

Many people spend their entire lives circling a black hole of negativity and keep wondering why bad things are happening to them, well hello! Did you try to orbit a beautiful luminous star? No. They keep going round and round and eventually get ripped apart  atom by atom by the black hole they so eagerly surround as if it was their only option. And it’s that lack of courage and negativity that holds them from taking a fateful step to dip their toes into this vast universe of life.

Be courageous.

''Here's what I know:

if you're willing to take a chance,

the view from the other side is spectacular.''

HorseHead Nebula :)

'You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.'' - Friedrich Nietzsche

Life is like our universe, full of hostile places, quasars radiation will relinquish you, black holes will devour you, but if you wander long enough, you’ll learn that this isn’t all, somewhere near these horrific hostilities there lies a beauty in the deep, a happy colourful nebula welcoming the birth of new stars (happy thoughts), instead of spending your life around a black hole, find your way to nebula, where new beginnings are possible and what we thought was impossible now becomes inspiring.

It’s your life, so where do you want to spend it?

-Quotes above are from Dr. Michio KaKu's book ''Einstein's Cosmos''

Poem: Defying Inhumanity

 A Palestinian Prisoner on HungerStrike

Tolerance to inhumanity was ceased,

His mortal body decided to plea,

''HungerStrike! HungerStrike!''

          He screamed.

To his loved ones he wrote in tears;

''I may not survive this fight,

But my cause will be clear,

Do not fear for this mortal body, mother

It shall soon be free''

And so the battle began,

Salt and Water are his only companions,

The mind, body and soul.

All at a fierce war,

Every second,

Every minute,

Every hour,

Every day,

He starves for food,

But his appetite for freedom conquers all,

His frigid body becomes weaker,

On it's own it tries to feed,

To keep this daring solider of justice on his feet,

The days go by,

And he can no longer stand,

His muscles are burned to the ground,

He can only gaze at this endless wall of gray,

And with his imagination he escapes,

He dreams of the sandy beaches of his homeland,

His mother whispers:

''Be strong my child,

Yes you can endure,

Think of us, we'll be united soon.

And we will celebrate you like no other groom''

He smiles in complete peace.

His breaths are slowing,

His heart is slowing,

And every organ starts to fail.

''Clinically dead'' they claim,

But the undeniable truth tells,

Medical facts are defied 

Logic is re-defined.

Dignity is defended.

Inhumanity is defeated

We scream. We pray. We fear. We watch.

And I can't help but wonder,

Is it enough?

Is it enough? 

Is it enough?