Ever get the feeling that things are closing in on you? Pressure mounting? Confined? Dominated by things from the outside? Take a lesson from physics.
There’s a principle by which airplanes fly, streams flow, fluids move through pipelines, and open sunroofs cool cars. Two guys a long time ago described the principle and put it in the math of physics. In one aspect: Constricting the flow of an inviscid fluid makes it speed up to conserve energy. In another aspect: A fluid speeds up in response to a reduction in pressure.
Send flowing water through a fat pipe and into a skinny one. The flow will have to increase in the skinny one because of the pressure from the greater volume (or discharge) through the fat pipe behind it. If you don’t have a pipe to see this in action, then observe a small stream that has varying widths and maybe even some small pools along its channel. Where the water is constricted, it will flow faster than where the water ponds. Go to a whitewater stream (or see a video of one). Where’s the whitewater? It is, of course, where there are constrictions formed by boulders or durable rock along the channel sides. You can, to make a pun, bank on it: In narrow channels water speeds up; in wide channels it slows down.
An inviscid fluid is hard to find. Real fluids have some viscosity (a resistance to flow), and that viscosity, coupled with the sides and bottom of a channel, produces a boundary layer that slows the flow of the fluid it contacts. Let’s simplify it: Viscosity toys with energy. A boundary layer presents an obstruction to flow in the “real” world of even minimally viscous fluids.
Return now to the feeling of pressure building, things closing in, and boundaries squashing you. What’s a person to do? Take a lesson from fluid flow. Pick up the pace. You’ll lower the pressure. For many, this is a hard lesson. The pressure on all sides makes some slow down, giving up the flow of their daily lives in their obsession with the boundary layers of resistance along the periphery of their emotions, actions, and goals. Advice: Don’t stop. Slowing down and yielding to the boundary layer of resistance will impede your flow. You need to get past the constrictions, doing whatever it takes to do so. When you speed up through the tough times, pressure eases.
In practical terms, get or sharpen knowledge or skills. Picture the constrictions in your life as narrowing pipes or stream channels. Envision the whitewater section. The boundary layers are less inhibiting in the middle of the stream. With some practice you will experience an exhilarating ride past the rocks on a temporarily turbulent stream. Yes, you will get a bit wet, but past the constrictions, you will give a shout of joy. You’ll feel the adrenaline rush as you look back at what, at the outset, seemed impossible to accomplish. You might even laugh at what you once perceived to be constrictions. From now on all feelings that things are closing in will give way to the excitement of the ride through the constrictions.
There’s a principle by which airplanes fly, streams flow, fluids move through pipelines, and open sunroofs cool cars. Two guys a long time ago described the principle and put it in the math of physics. In one aspect: Constricting the flow of an inviscid fluid makes it speed up to conserve energy. In another aspect: A fluid speeds up in response to a reduction in pressure.
Send flowing water through a fat pipe and into a skinny one. The flow will have to increase in the skinny one because of the pressure from the greater volume (or discharge) through the fat pipe behind it. If you don’t have a pipe to see this in action, then observe a small stream that has varying widths and maybe even some small pools along its channel. Where the water is constricted, it will flow faster than where the water ponds. Go to a whitewater stream (or see a video of one). Where’s the whitewater? It is, of course, where there are constrictions formed by boulders or durable rock along the channel sides. You can, to make a pun, bank on it: In narrow channels water speeds up; in wide channels it slows down.
An inviscid fluid is hard to find. Real fluids have some viscosity (a resistance to flow), and that viscosity, coupled with the sides and bottom of a channel, produces a boundary layer that slows the flow of the fluid it contacts. Let’s simplify it: Viscosity toys with energy. A boundary layer presents an obstruction to flow in the “real” world of even minimally viscous fluids.
Return now to the feeling of pressure building, things closing in, and boundaries squashing you. What’s a person to do? Take a lesson from fluid flow. Pick up the pace. You’ll lower the pressure. For many, this is a hard lesson. The pressure on all sides makes some slow down, giving up the flow of their daily lives in their obsession with the boundary layers of resistance along the periphery of their emotions, actions, and goals. Advice: Don’t stop. Slowing down and yielding to the boundary layer of resistance will impede your flow. You need to get past the constrictions, doing whatever it takes to do so. When you speed up through the tough times, pressure eases.
In practical terms, get or sharpen knowledge or skills. Picture the constrictions in your life as narrowing pipes or stream channels. Envision the whitewater section. The boundary layers are less inhibiting in the middle of the stream. With some practice you will experience an exhilarating ride past the rocks on a temporarily turbulent stream. Yes, you will get a bit wet, but past the constrictions, you will give a shout of joy. You’ll feel the adrenaline rush as you look back at what, at the outset, seemed impossible to accomplish. You might even laugh at what you once perceived to be constrictions. From now on all feelings that things are closing in will give way to the excitement of the ride through the constrictions.
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