The Forgotten Part of Inertia

'Inertia' as it is generally used has come to stand for laziness, slothfulness, etc. But there is an often overlooked aspect:


"A body persists its state of rest or of uniform motion unless acted upon by an external unbalanced force." #

The inability to make voluntary course corrections is of course not confined to the motion of physical objects. Habits of mind in fact seem to be harder to change at times. Inertia of physical bodies in motion is of course a lot more tangible and it's much harder to appreciate the effect of mental inertia. I hit a drunkard who jumped out from behind a parked auto a couple of months ago. It happened in slow motion, the inevitability could be savoured in the midst of the adrenalin rush. More recently a similar incident saw me sprawled near Adyar signal - an observer who didn't watch the whole accident or the fallen bike could be forgiven for thinking that I was a fan of Pizza Corner or Adyar Anand Bhavan. In this case it was instantaneous. The pedestrian could have stopped and checked, mini-me fumes. But inertia or the inability to change course is a devastatingly powerful force, it's almost a kind of contra, counter-intuitive, meta-physical thingie - I suspect the inertia in this case is the same regardless of speed. Vedantins, especially, use Vasanas as a way to explain behaviour - these are supposed to be latent tendencies that get manifested in action. Duryodhanan's famous remark about his inability to change his ways in spite of being aware of it is well known. It's truly an universe shaping force.

I suspect the great man was on to something. Someone should check whether it was a குருந்தை மரம் or an apple tree.