If It's About 'Inertia,' Is It Really 'Inertia?'

If It’s About ‘Inertia,’ Is It Really Inertia?

Inertia: a property of matter by which it remains at rest or in uniform motion in the same straight line unless acted upon by some external force, OR:  indisposition to motion, exertion, or change. RELATED WORDS: apathy, languor, lassitude, lethargy, listlessness, sluggishness, supineness; dallying, goldbricking, loafing, lolling, lounging. 

When I started ‘riding,’ five years ago, I started ‘writing’ again (is it any wonder the English language is so difficult to learn?). Something magical happened when I started moving forward on two wheels, the synapses started firing and ideas started to spew out of my head.  I was so astonished when it happened the first time, I had to pull over to safety, grab my ‘Blackberry,’ (that was a long time ago) and send myself a text message with the idea!   

After my first road trip on Bessie1, I started a journal, an electronic journal. I would re-read the effort and begin to realize I had clarity about my life that I didn’t have before I started riding....or is it ‘writing?’

Ideas that startled me and literally made me stop and take note. Sentences I didn’t know existed would wrestle their way to the forefront of my brain, insisting to be set free. Characters took shape, real-live characters that insisted on a voice. My alter ego showed herself to me as well...but thats a whole ‘nuther show as Dr. Phil would say. And the thoughts, ideas, sentences, stories have not stopped.

There is an urgency to my thoughts, a cadence, a drumbeat....keeping time with the steady roar of the V-twin engine I straddle. That Harley Davidson ‘thump thump thump’  creates a syncopated rhythm for ideas that have percolated, and are now ready to bubble over into written form.

There is something unique and sometimes terrifying that happens astride two wheels on a solid, open piece of asphalt. You squeeze the throttle, pushing the limit (speed limit usually)...as the speed increases, that ‘dotted’ white line starts to become ‘solid,’ the evenly spaced chunks of white on black asphalt become closer together, blurred, not quite one, but close. The wind forms a tighter tunnel around you and the bike...the scenery - in your peripheral vision - starts to blur as well, what were once solid forms, are now blended by the speed of the bike, like a painted background on a theater set. Ambient sound is obliterated, now its just you, the engine, the wind, and your thoughts. Its like a vortex of thought, so finely tuned, so sharply focused it is impossible to escape and the unique part is, I don’t want to. The paradox is this: I ride to escape, and when I ride, I think. And when I think, there is no escaping the thoughts, feelings, emotions, and ultimately the reason and logic. The road is where I put all of that into focus.

After my second road trip - solo - I started to write my blog about my travels, ‘Bessie and Me.’ It is the blog no one reads...well, practically no one. Its very good, which begs the question, ‘why don’t more people read it?’  

My daughter will see me typing away on my laptop, she sees the focus and the intensity. 

“Mom, what are you doing?”

‘Writing.’

“Oh. Writing more stories that no one sees?”

And yes, I have to agree with her, I write stories that no one sees.

They don’t read my blog and they don’t read my stories. I have three ‘books’ in various states of ‘incomplete’ on my computer. I have professional papers that no professional has ever seen. And after a conversation this morning with someone I have become very fond of, I straddled Bessie2, fired the V-twin and squeezed the throttle, hurtling myself along I-4 early on Saturday morning...and Boom! There it is...the thoughts started racing forward; I’m not sure which got to 90mph first, Bessie2 or my thoughts. And by the time I reached my driveway, they had all come crashing to the forefront, along with a few tears of frustration.

I had to observe the INERTIA in another, before I could see it in myself. Different areas, same ‘languor.’ I am ‘listless’ in terms of my writing. I suffer dearly from ‘sluggishness’ in terms of promoting my writing. I am ‘apathetic’ in terms of believing in myself and my abilities - and for Chrissakes! if I don’t believe in ME who will!? 

I choose the ‘antonyms,’ the ‘opposites,’ of INERTIA:
ambition, enterprise, go, hustle, initiative; assiduity, assiduousness, diligence, perseverance; animation, briskness, energy, exuberance, jazziness, liveliness, lustiness, pep, peppiness, robustness, sprightliness, vibrancy, vigor, vim, vitality, vivacity.....Yes! That’s more like it...more like ME and more like my Writing.

Living Out Loud

So, perhaps it takes INERTIA to move someone else off INERTIA; I  have been traveling the same straight line with my writing - and getting nowhere. I have needed that external force to move me out of my INERTIA. I ended my ride this morning with a new conviction; no more INERTIA where my writing is concerned; I have known for quite sometime what I need to do, I just needed that external force - that pain, discomfort, emotional upheaval - as a jolt.

I trust my friend will find the same; life is too short to travel that same, boring straight line - think of the white line as it unfurls behind you on the asphalt....it starts out many singular white blocks....steadily becoming one as you squeeze the throttle, or at least the appearance of one. If you don't Live Your Life at Full Throttle, You are Languishing in Inertia.