Vicissitudes. Ah! Changes. Could we undergo any more than we now daily face? Fashions, mores, politics, philosophies, neighborhoods, emotions, waistlines…
As land-dwellers, we’ve seen it all, or we’ve seen our fair share of changes. Nothing should shake us. Does our relatively unshakeable nature have anything to do with our composition? We’re mostly water, and there’s a steadiness in water that resists change. Given that we are mostly water and that water is hard to change, shouldn’t we be almost immune to change, save of course, extreme changes.
All substances have a specific heat value. We associate the value with calories (not food Calories—they’re an order of magnitude larger): One calorie is the amount of heat energy needed to raise one gram of water through one degree Celsius at one atmospheric pressure (1,013.2 millibars). In short, a watched pot seems to take forrrreverrr to boil. Why? If you want to raise the temperature of that little gram of water by a single degree, you have to pump 4.186 joules (one calorie) into it. Water, the physicists say, has a high specific heat. By comparison, a gram of copper will rise a degree Celsius with the infusion of only .38 joules. Copper has a low specific heat. Good thing we’re not made of copper. We would heat up and cool off pretty fast.
Water protects us in an ocean of air, a substance that can heat up and cool down relatively rapidly. Weather. Ocean “weather” isn’t as fickle. It takes a long time for ocean water to heat up and cool off. Again, thanks to that high specific heat of water we can weather the weather. Almost all ocean-dwellers would succumb if their environment were as fickle as our ocean of air.
As water-beings—usually, our physical makeup ranges between 45 and 65% water—we have the potential to resist rapid change; at least, physically. And one might think that our physical nature spills (I like that word) over into our intellectual and emotional natures. We’re hit by a constant energy of change, but we can resist changing. That’s bad in some ways, of course. It’s as slow a process to get us to change our views as it is to boil water. We can be stubborn regardless of how many of those calories of change we encounter daily.
But our resistance to change gives us the ability to persist through changes and adversity. When we encounter changes like the loss of an object, even a house, or the loss of a job, we have the ability to maintain a relatively steady character. Maybe you have not experienced such changes, but you have seen in the disrupted lives of others hit by fires, floods, and storms, a steadiness of character that manifests itself in a refusal to give up. Even in the tragic loss of a loved one, we have the ability to stay very near what we were.
Think you’re under pressure to change your character because of the vicissitudes of society or changes in your personal world? Is someone or some group infusing you with excess energy, their energy? Like the water that dominates your composition, you can absorb a great deal of energy without changing.
What’s happening now? Are you encountering an angry person in an angry energetic outburst? Think water. Think, “I am mostly water.” Think high specific heat. Think, “A watched pot never boils.” Think, “It’s going to take more than a few emotional calories to get me boiling.”
You have both a literal and a figurative high specific heat. Realize that, and it will take a considerable input of energy to get you boiling.
As land-dwellers, we’ve seen it all, or we’ve seen our fair share of changes. Nothing should shake us. Does our relatively unshakeable nature have anything to do with our composition? We’re mostly water, and there’s a steadiness in water that resists change. Given that we are mostly water and that water is hard to change, shouldn’t we be almost immune to change, save of course, extreme changes.
All substances have a specific heat value. We associate the value with calories (not food Calories—they’re an order of magnitude larger): One calorie is the amount of heat energy needed to raise one gram of water through one degree Celsius at one atmospheric pressure (1,013.2 millibars). In short, a watched pot seems to take forrrreverrr to boil. Why? If you want to raise the temperature of that little gram of water by a single degree, you have to pump 4.186 joules (one calorie) into it. Water, the physicists say, has a high specific heat. By comparison, a gram of copper will rise a degree Celsius with the infusion of only .38 joules. Copper has a low specific heat. Good thing we’re not made of copper. We would heat up and cool off pretty fast.
Water protects us in an ocean of air, a substance that can heat up and cool down relatively rapidly. Weather. Ocean “weather” isn’t as fickle. It takes a long time for ocean water to heat up and cool off. Again, thanks to that high specific heat of water we can weather the weather. Almost all ocean-dwellers would succumb if their environment were as fickle as our ocean of air.
As water-beings—usually, our physical makeup ranges between 45 and 65% water—we have the potential to resist rapid change; at least, physically. And one might think that our physical nature spills (I like that word) over into our intellectual and emotional natures. We’re hit by a constant energy of change, but we can resist changing. That’s bad in some ways, of course. It’s as slow a process to get us to change our views as it is to boil water. We can be stubborn regardless of how many of those calories of change we encounter daily.
But our resistance to change gives us the ability to persist through changes and adversity. When we encounter changes like the loss of an object, even a house, or the loss of a job, we have the ability to maintain a relatively steady character. Maybe you have not experienced such changes, but you have seen in the disrupted lives of others hit by fires, floods, and storms, a steadiness of character that manifests itself in a refusal to give up. Even in the tragic loss of a loved one, we have the ability to stay very near what we were.
Think you’re under pressure to change your character because of the vicissitudes of society or changes in your personal world? Is someone or some group infusing you with excess energy, their energy? Like the water that dominates your composition, you can absorb a great deal of energy without changing.
What’s happening now? Are you encountering an angry person in an angry energetic outburst? Think water. Think, “I am mostly water.” Think high specific heat. Think, “A watched pot never boils.” Think, “It’s going to take more than a few emotional calories to get me boiling.”
You have both a literal and a figurative high specific heat. Realize that, and it will take a considerable input of energy to get you boiling.
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