The Spiral of Life

I’ve been thinking about my college years and what I learned during my time there, inside or outside the classroom. My Natural Science I (Physics) professor introduced the concept of spacetime and told my class that Earth’s motion seen in spacetime was a spiral rather than an ellipse (each moment has a unique place in space and time, thus never quite duplicated). According to the theory of general relativity, Earth travels around the Sun because the Sun’s mass curves spacetime around it, making other bodies move within this curvature. The greater the mass of an object, the more curved spacetime around it becomes. Just as objects travel the straightest lines possible within curved spacetime (i.e., a spiral), could it be possible that our lives also progress in a spiral?

In our lives, we revolve around what bears the most importance to us (e.g., family, career, money, God), but we do not remain at a standstill. Each event in life is a unique combination of past experience and present time.

I’m at a point in my life where recent situations have begun to echo past experiences. Let me be a little less vague about the “recent situations.” People I met seven years ago (yup, in my college days) have resurfaced: former orgmates, classmates, and blockmates; a rebuffed suitor; and some friends from film screenings I used to attend in the university. At the same time, these days I’m experiencing general feelings of wanting independence from my parents and I’ve had to rebuff another suitor: these were things that happened seven years ago as well. If you’re like me and you believe there’s a purpose to why things happen, then you (I mean, I) have got to start asking, “What should I be doing differently this time around?”

That question is important, especially since this time around I’m no longer a sixteen-year-old in her second year of college. I told Adam last week, “You ever feel like you’re at a certain point where one decision could determine how the rest of your life goes?” He said some wise words: “Enjoy it; it’s a good time to be in. Just remember, whatever you do decide, don’t lose sight of who you are.”

“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana

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0 thoughts on “The Spiral of Life

  • August 25, 2006 at 3:00 am
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    wow, rebuff another suitor? i feel bad for him. first you rebuff him. then he has to read about it on your blog. poor guy. πŸ˜‰ btw, to rebuff something sounds like something you do to a car, like buffing a car to make it look shiny. πŸ˜€

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  • August 25, 2006 at 11:19 am
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    I don’t really worry about him reading this, since he rarely goes online. πŸ˜‰ And I’m using the word “rebuff” because of the movie Clueless, in which Cher Horowitz says, “…I was brutally rebuffed!” πŸ˜€

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  • August 26, 2006 at 7:20 pm
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    rebuff? to make a car shiny again? egads. now i really believe that anyone can blog.

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  • August 27, 2006 at 10:03 pm
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    Nice. You still remember lessons in Physics class.Well, good luck on deciding whatever it might be! πŸ™‚

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  • August 28, 2006 at 9:44 am
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    My mind is a sieve, but the big chunks don’t fall out. πŸ˜€ As for deciding whatever, the decision was easy.

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