CAN YOU GRASP THE BOUNCING PING-PONG BALL?
I learn a lot from stories. They allow me to return over and over again to truths that my mind can only absorb over time. Often the really deep truths are better represented through stories. This is one reason that human consciousness creates myths to explain the way things are.
For years, I have struggled to wrap my mind around the notion that space is relative. Physicist Stephen Hawking offers a simple explanatory illustration in his amazing book, A Brief History of Time. I hear it as a story. He says this illustration is an oversimplification and not quite right but it conveys the point. This story has played again and again in my head for over twenty-five years.
Imagine a guy is riding on a train traveling down the track at 90 miles per hour. He is bouncing a ping-pong ball and hitting the table twice in the same spot one second apart. But you are standing on the ground next the train track. For you, the ball has not hit the same spot twice, but has hit two spots that are forty feet apart because the train has traveled down the track between bounces. For physics, both perspectives are equally true. There is no single privileged point of view when it comes to space.
Do you know that from a perspective in outer space that I am hurling nearly 1000 mph through space because of the earth’s rotation? This is happening as I write these words into my computer. In other words, I am the guy bouncing the ping-pong ball and, from some perspective simultaneously, I am traveling nearly as fast as a speeding bullet. Yikes, there is a lot happening.
This simple illustration has led me indirectly to the following thoughts: The problem is not discovering what the truth is; the problem is that there is too much truth. I am sitting stationary right now and also traveling nearly 1000 mph at the same time. This is the expansive, paradoxical truth. I can’t really stay present with the speeding bullet. I can only perceive what I can perceive, i.e. that I am sitting stationary. I can open to the other truth, the 1000 mph story. This Hawking illustration leads me realize that truths need not compete with each other. They can all be true without being in conflict. Truth is not competitive. This realization changed my life.
I hope you too have little stories that stretch your mind and help you realize things. I hope you let stories stand in for expansive truths that your mind cannot fully hold. For when we allow stories to function as placeholders for much bigger truths, we can open to these truths without creating uncertainty. We can focus on the simpler, symbolic story and yet still feel the incomprehensible, expansive truth. The power of myth. This opens us to the incredible and mysterious nature of our existence without being overwhelmed. And hopefully, just maybe, this helps the world become a better place.