Gravity is Your Friend, Part 1

What is Gravity?

Gravity is not just the magnet that holds our feet to the ground. It is a field. From the farthest reaches of the stratosphere to the center of the earth, gravity pulls everything inward. Towards the center. Everything from the very air we breathe, to the oceans, the trees, the buildings, even the birds, and of course, us. Instead of holding us onto the earth, gravity pulls us into the earth. Since it also pulls everything else into the earth as well including the air, it becomes a field that we move through. Gravitational force pulls through us, all day, every day. 

The center of the earth is the ultimate ground point for everything on the planet. The earth itself is being pulled to the center of the sun, and the sun to the center of the galaxy. This happens because these things are big. Big in terms of heavy; in terms of mass. And the pull isn't just to the surface of the thing but to the center of the thing. The center of mass, ie., the center of gravity.

The center of the earth is not like the center of the tootsie pop. It is not the nut in the middle.  It is not a thing you can pull out and point to. It is not even a thing at all. It is the point created by the collection of all the other stuff around it. Pack together all the iron, the magma, the rock, the dirt and at the very middle of all that weight is the center of mass; the center of gravity. Because of all that weight crushing together onto that one center point, it drags everything into the center point as well. The reason we aren't currently in the center of the earth is because all of the other stuff we call earth itself gets in the way. The dirt, rock, magma and iron stand between us and the center point. We are as close as we can get at the moment. We have fallen as far as we can.

When you look at a building or a tree, it is generally bigger at the bottom than at the top. These structures are continuously being pulled on by gravity, they are in a constant state of falling/being dragged into the center of the earth, but the ground gets in the way. The materials are stacked in such a way that the building appears to be upright, to be “standing”. In fact, the building you see has already fallen as far as the current arrangement of materials has let it. Should the materials fail, or the ground itself change, the building crashes down. It “falls” to the next structurally stable arrangement of materials.

As a static (non-moving) structure, a building or a tree is built straight up off of the ground. Because it is expected to stay still, its center of gravity is the earth’s center of gravity. It is effectively an extension of the earth itself. If the surface of the earth moves, the building is still being pulled to the center of the earth. That's why buildings fall down in an earthquake. It is always falling. In an earthquake it just falls more. 

Buildings, trees and mountains can get away with using the earth's fixed center as their center of gravity because it is their job to stay still; Fixed to the single location on earth and so fixed to the center of the earth. They are required to remain fixed; they are not required to move. 

As soon as something is required to move from a fixed point on the earth, it has to remove itself (even a little bit) from the pull of the earth at one fixed point in order to move to another point. 

Humans are creatures of movement. If our superpower is adaptation then our very existence is defined by change, movement. We still use the pull of gravity and the center of the earth as a reference, but in removing ourselves from a fixed point, we remove ourselves (just a little bit) from the stationary center of gravity. We create our own point of reference. The act of moving creates in us our own center of gravity. 

That's not to say that we are free of the constant pull toward the center of the earth. The earth is still bigger, Gravity still wins. All day, every day. But with our own center of gravity, our own point of reference, we are free to move within it. 

The same field that draws everything inward from the outer reaches of the stratosphere, pulls through us. It pulls through the whole of us, from skin to bone to each and every cell, but the “greatest” pull centers on the “heaviest” part of us: our center of mass, our center of gravity.