Escape Velocity

An object in motion tends to stay in motion, so the dead sciency folks will tell you, which would imply that any thrust delivered to that object would propel it ever more quickly towards its destination. But we seldom find ourselves in the frictionless vacuum that Newtonian physics so adores - our lives tend to mire instead in their surrounding environment. That endless drag of muddy, swampy friction viciously destroys our carefully plotted mathematics, hungrily swallows our energy reserves, and our trajectory curve of acceleration gets pulled straight, and then down into the murky depths of static, frigid immobility. And then the dead sciency guy will remind you: An object at rest tends to stay at rest. Well that's a law of motion I can vouch for personally.

I have been "at rest" for a couple years now. Beaten down by the housing market, hammered mercilessly by the job market, pounded by the recession, and pistol whipped by both self-doubt and depression (and they are a mean pair, let me tell you), it is no wonder that this blog has gathered cobwebs and dust, and was nearly lost to me entirely along with all sense of creative output. My kinetic energies were gone, my potential energy was locked in ice ... I was at the bottom of my gravity well despite my very best efforts to escape it.

But physics do funny things at the bottom of a deep gravity well. As I lay there, utterly spent, despair turned to acceptance, unemployment became entrepreneurship. Misery became hope. As I seemed to lose everything ... I realized I had lost absolutely nothing - at least nothing I truly valued. A loving wife, a supportive family, friends who care... these things never left my side. Not once. I rose from the darkness with the help of strong hands and encouraging words - they lifted me up, and they set me down in the dry grass. I'd never have made it on my own - there is no greater gift I could receive.

I still take an occasional misstep into the marsh, but this has been my year of knocking the mud out of my air intakes, powering up the hyperspace drive, and re-learning a few jedi powers. I'm working at a promising new job, living in a new house just up the road from my old one, and jumping feet first into as many new experiences as I can. And that means (hopefully) more blog entries to come!

Time to blast off!