I remember learning in Uni about the Newtonian Laws. A body in motion, any effect is met with an equal and opposite one, if you sit under the apple tree, you’ll get bonked on the head. You know, those laws.

Shall we dance, gentle reader… or are you in a cruel mood, today?  That might, actually, serve you well, considering my frame of mind.

Ego. Feelings. He said/She said. I was thinking about how I react when someone says something I don’t like, or don’t want to hear.  So, just to be uber-dramatic, an expression I use when people fight is “tearing great chunks out of each other”. Personally, I feel it less as a physical hit, more as a spiritual one.  As in, “That hurts my soul.” And much like blood rushing to the sight of a wound, *something* rushes in to mend my spirit.

Oh but wait… did I say “mend”? Because while my friend Newton suggests give is paired with take, push is paired with pull, in equal but opposite measure, it seems like my soul (or spirit or energy or whatever you wish to call it) reacts with equal measure of “more of the same”.

I think it’s how anxiety must work, how the first flicker of unease is fed with more and greater levels of worry and concern, until what started out as a small issue becomes overwhelming.

So sometimes, an unexpected blow becomes a mortal damage. This is the opposite of what Newton describes.

Mind you, sometimes I get it…. sometimes Newton would be proud, like the time I got fired from a dead-end, low paying office-dogs-body job, and after a few hours crying I realized that, in fact, the jerk who fired me did me a favour, for somehow I managed to remind myself that I was worth so much more.  I didn’t lose that job. They were stupid enough to let me go– to not see the value in me, and the potential I had.  Of course, that also led to my getting a post sec education (where I undoubtedly learned about our physics-loving-friend), and a number of jobs and situations that better suited my skills.  Of course, for a long time, I wished that employer would be miserable and rue the day he sent me packing (that’s a non-Newtonian push of misery for misery). Now, I can offer equal measure of gratitude for the serving of disrespect and disregard I received.  Well. Just about.

I do still like to think, that even 30 years hence, that guy thinks about me and thinks “Wow, I really should have appreciated her more. She was awesome.”

Maybe in another 30 years or so, I won’t even remember that incident….possibly 40