Friction

I hate that sound, that screeching one of an awry shrill chalk movement, of nails against glass, of a dry crumpled paper wiping a blackboard, that dry eardrum-piercing sound of unadulterated friction. It's exactly the sound I hear in my head when my thoughts drift in a forbidden direction and I rush to apply the brakes. It's a useful one if you want to disconnect, but it echoes in the air for a long time afterward, moist in the shadow of the forbidden memory. How hard do we try to remember, and forget, certain memories! How hard do we try to just control ourselves, especially our thoughts, and especially when we 'instruct' them to fly free...

We just don't get it, we humans, that there may exist a paradigm beyond the master-slave relationship, beyond the winner and the loser, beyond the controlling and the controlled. We always want to "know", we always want to be in charge, we always want to be well-guided, we always want to do the right thing, whatever that may be. We need to define everything, so it can be controlled, in some way. That's all this struggle of life is about. We are sheer control freaks, all of us.

The most interesting lesson in class 9 physics was that if there was no friction, we wouldn't be able to walk ahead. If there were no conflicts, no disputes, nobody to disagree, none of that uncontrolled 'noise', we wouldn't be getting anywhere. As much as we love and desire peace, the truth is that all we want is a peaceful disagreement.

And it's an amusing truth too, because it brings you at a peaceful agreement with the fact that those everyday niggles, those irritating aspects we bring ourselves to live with, those little arguments and the occasional yells that creep in all our relationships, they're okay, because it's the friction that prevents us from stagnating, and collapsing. It's the little friction that produces the little hug, the "sorry mom", the love you whisper. It's the friction, in just the optimum amount, that keeps love growing. Just a thought...