The Ferris Wheel of God
I haven't blogged from Coffee Bean for a while. So today, I decided to write my article of the week here. This particular outlet at my neighbourhood has been renovated since I last came here. It used to be my go-to workplace for weekends, because it was quieter than Starbucks. This new one is much more spacious and comfortable but still relatively quiet, which is great.
I've been thinking about the topic of today's blog post since early this morning when I was taking my usual walk around the park. I get a lot of ideas every time I walk there, while listening to my favourite podcasts or audiobooks.
Today, for some reason I was thinking about simple harmonic motion. I remember this fondly as one of the topics in our Form 6 Physics syllabus. I see this simple oscillatory motion as something very basic in nature, and having understood it mathematically, it gave me a intuitive grasp of a lot of things in world, which are periodic and vibratory in nature.
The oscillation of a weight hanging on a spring, obeying Hooke's Law, is an example of a simple harmonic motion. So is the small angle swing of a pendulum. There's always a restorative force that pulls the weight back to its rest position: the tension of the spring, or gravity in the case of the pendulum. Kinetic energy is converted to potential energy and back to kinetic again. In an ideal frictionless world, the oscillation can go on forever. In the real world, energy is slowly dissipated as heat, and the oscillation slows to a halt.
Mathematically, the simple harmonic motion is the vertical or horizontal projection of a point moving in a circle at constant speed or angular velocity. Imagine that you are sitting in a car on a Ferris wheel that's rotating at a constant speed. If someone on the ground were to stand somewhere so that he only views the wheel from the side, the entire wheel would appear like a straight vertical column. And you, the passenger would appear to be going up and down that column. Your motion would appear to be a simple harmonic motion too--slowing down as you reach the highest point and then accelerating towards the centre before slowing down again as you reach the bottom.
Basically, a constant two-dimensional rotary motion around a centre has become a one-dimensional oscillation between two polar points, when viewed from a difference perspective. Unity has become binary or multiplicity. If only we can elevate our consciousness and see the world from a difference angle, we'll see everything as One.
Chapter 40 of the Tao Te Ching, poetically expresses this simple harmonic tug-and-pull between two poles, beautifully:
Returning is the movement of the Tao.
Yielding is the way of the Tao.
All things in the world arise from being.
Being arises from non-being.
If we plot your vertical position on the Ferris wheel against the axis of time, your graph will look like a sinusoidal wave. Your circular motion on the Ferris wheel, is like a rollercoaster ride across time.
All the drama of our existence is nothing but the interplay between polar opposites, which arose from viewing the world from our limited perspective. Understanding simple harmonic motion gives you an intuitive grasp of all the forces at play in the world of maya.
Most of the time, we are immersed in the rollercoaster ride of life, with its ups and downs. Life is such a suffering for we only see displacement, stress and tension when the universe is simply the inevitable expression of an underlying oneness, the tawhid that is God.
We can only have intuitive glimpses of the mystery behind our existence. Depending on our temperament and constitution, we attempt to convey this glimmer of an understanding using a language created from our everyday interactions with the material world. If we are Taoists, we'd learn to live in harmony with the Tao; if we are monotheists, we'd surrender to the Will of God and if you are like me, you would see the Ferris wheel of God spinning and I happily riding it, revelling in the beauty of its simple harmonic motion.
