Since my creativity is sorely drained right now, I thought I’d start rewinding the clock and show some old posts from the previous incarnation of KeithGoode.com.

Metaphysical Gravitation

February 21, 2005, 8:50pm CST

It’s a fact that most of the fuel of any mission to space with our current technology is spent merely breaking away from Earth’s gravity. I say “merely” as if we should’ve found a solution to the problem by now. But gravity is the force that holds it all together: it keeps us from flying off the ground into infinite space, it keeps the Earth in an orbit that keeps Earth suitable for life, it sustains our solar system’s rotation around the Milky Way’s galactic central point, and so on. Gravity, in no uncertain terms, is essential to our existence. And yet we’ve been fighting it for centuries, even before da Vinci sketched out the first helicopter or designed an aeroplane, if not longer. Our beloved angels compel our fascination not only because they’re spiritual beings, but also because they can fly effortlessly. As in the flight of Icarus, the concept of flight has inspired the idea that somehow if we could fly, we would be closer to the gods. Who knows? Perhaps we would even be gods.

But, then there is gravity to contend with. It’s no wonder that the concept of Hell and Hades places them inside of the Earth or beneath the earth. God, or the gods, is up there somewhere, and the bad place is down there somewhere. Our freedom comes from our defeat (or God’s defeat) of those forces who work against us (who would keep us “down”) and the “rising up” to meet our destiny. Even the efforts of a person who becomes president of a company or a nation are described as being his or her “rise to power.” Love or happiness “raise” our spirits.

“I fell down,” “I’m feeling a bit down today,” “I’m feeling under the weather today,” “Hey man, you’re bringing me down,” … None of these statements is positive. We can take from this that “up” is good and “down” is bad. It’s in our genes, or in our “collective unconscious,” as C.G. Jung would say it.

And so, metaphysically and/or metaphorically, when speaking of the nature of man and society, it can be easily stated (and has been stated) that it is in our nature to gravitate (downward) to the lowest common denominator. Water that follows the path of least resistance is flowing downward, as do we as a society. If such were not the case, then the world would be overflowing with people who were the best that they had the potential of becoming. We’d be a society of perfectionists, highly-motivated, goal-oriented, peaceful, hard-working … in short, we would create a Utopia here on Earth.

Individually, I find myself at crossroads again. (and again and again and again.) To take action, to set goals and achieve them, to become my potential, or to fall down, fall short, fail myself and my friends and family. And instead of deciding, I stand at the crossroads waiting for someone to push me in the right direction. Fear keeps me from making either decision. I know that I cannot stagnate for long, because nothing in Nature stagnates. It either grows or decays. To stay at this crossroad is to eventually decay.

So am I at this set of crossroads, like the blues player Robert Johnson, to make a deal with the Devil or to make a deal with myself?

Of course, I want to fly, whether I fall like Icarus or not. I want to rise up and beat gravity, rather than fall like the masses to the way of convenience and apathy.

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