I’m currently reading a book called Waypoints by Robert Martineau. It’s about his pilgrimage on the West African coast, one he decided to take as he was afraid of falling into a life he didn’t want to. So far, I’m enjoying reading it. One thing in particular made me think. He talks about the idea of inertia, which he tries describing by referring to the city administrator D. J. Waldie’s book Holy Land about a city in California. Waldie writes about growing up in a city called Lakewood and how his parents brought their house in 1946, “less than a year after the war ended, and…felt extraordinarily lucky.” He goes on to describe the house as a place of pilgrimage following the war and Depression in New York. Living there allowed them to feel like their life was whole, having “habits that did not make them feel ashamed”.

At the time, such settlements were a new thing. These almost isolated, self contained cities are now ubiquitous, many of them being modelled on Waldie’s neighbourhood. Like Waldie, I’m sure that many residents of similar suburbs would agree that “daily life (here) has an inertia that people believe in.” Where there’s a certain monotony and familiarity that brings comfort and safety. This is one type of inertia, one that could perhaps best be described as the typical American dream. The Western dream, if you like, is not too dissimilar. Such inertia contains material items, things, creature comforts that facilitate habituality in an almost vacuum-like atmosphere. To look outside of this vacuum would be to undermine the power of the present inertia, taking tremendous energy to do so. Often, these materialistic things are interwoven with experiences containing depth; however, I suspect that such moments are fading away with great rapidity.

But inertia needn’t always take this form. It can take many forms. Perhaps the seemingly opposite form of inertia is one that neither Martineau or I have experienced: “A place where there’s no work, seeing no way out of poverty, no chance to build a future.” One would certainly say that they’re privileged and lucky to avoid being caught up in such inertia. But the symptoms resulting from these opposing inertias are often equivalent, these being despair, helplessness, and hopelessness. It’s just that in the first instance, these are clouded by the superficial, whereas in the latter case, they’re explicitly brought to the fore. The former is dangerous, as no immediate harm can be seen from this inertia that so much of Western society are part of. Deterioration inevitably awaits, though, with increased rates of depression being one simple example of this. It’s a result of the blindness developed from holding the naive viewpoint of seeming diametric opposition in these two types of inertia, for the implications are not too dissimilar.

A key motivator for Martineau’s pilgrimage was to shake himself out of the shackles of his inertia. A kind of inertia similar to that which Waldie discussed. He refers to the kind that involves spending too much time sat down, watching TV, and habitually doing the same thing over and over, which in itself is not inherently bad, but often we do so without knowing why. He says that such inertia is “partly…(from) having so much choice you freeze”, but I’d go further and say that, metaphorically, it’s not that we’re frozen, but instead that we’re swimming in waters without awareness of the presence of water. Allowing ourselves to become prisoners of a prison we didn’t even know we were in. Denying ourselves the Truth. It’s why such inertia often culminates in addiction, depression, and loneliness. Not addiction necessarily to class A drugs, nor depression so severe that it requires antidepressants, and not even loneliness in the way we view it - as being alone. Addiction can be subtle and strongly denied by the individual. Likewise with depression. If the collective equilibrium is set by the sum of individual inertias, then it’s often difficult to notice the presence of these defilements. So we may prefer to constantly surround ourselves with others, to occupy ourselves such that we’re distracted and feel like we’re not lonely in the intellectual sense. But loneliness is not the same as being alone, for we can be alone without feeling lonely. This itself is freedom.

During the same short passage in the book, I started thinking about the different levels of inertia present in current society, and how some of these are causing a collapse that most of us are blind to. I believe that, despite being psychological - almost a state, if you like - like many things, the roots of such inertia are present in the physical world. Yes, ultimately our whole life happens inside our minds, but inertia resides in a place predominated by unconscious thoughts and emotions that reside in our psyche, which itself is constructed from our experiences. In this way, the physical is inextricably linked to the superficial unconscious behaviour patterns that are the building blocks of any inertia. My concern is that much of the present inertia, both at an individual and societal level, is nearing becoming irreversible, if not already so. This is why I wanted to write about what I believe to be a key component of this potentially irreversible inertia, as well as one of the key consequences. Who knows, maybe I’ll look back in a couple of decades’ time, if I’m lucky to still be here, and feel like the present inertia has only become stronger. Or maybe I’ll be proven wrong.

The pursuit of pleasure

When thinking about the root cause of the present inertia, at least in Western society, the pursuit of pleasure is at the forefront. Pleasure is an interesting thing. For we often think that the way to attain happiness is to pursue pleasure. Then we will feel fulfilled in our lives. But, like I’ve touched on in my post reflecting on my learnings from Krishnamurti’s book, Can the mind be quiet?, pleasure itself is very destructive, as it’s pursuit is done so from a place of fear. It is joy that brings happiness in life, and joy is something that cannot be pursued. This is something that does not originate from the I, the ego, unlike pleasure, which does. The interesting thing is, in the Western world we’re conditioned to pursue pleasure, believing that this is the origin of joy or enjoyment. From the moment we enter the school system, the whole structure is designed around climbing the so called social ladder. One where hierarchy dictates the position which someone takes in this ladder, and in which we either inspire towards, or reflect upon, in the pursuit of pleasure and happiness. The way towards satisfaction is to climb up to the next rung on the ladder.

While climbing this ladder, we may start accumulating some wealth. Not in its purest sense, instead, monetary wealth. With this wealth we can afford greater and better comforts and entertainment, thereby fulfilling our craving for pleasure. I’ve nothing against comforts nor entertainment; however, it’s a very slippery slope if we use such things to mask the Truth. For these are the easy options, requiring little effort to obtain. But it’s against human nature to derive pleasure from things that don’t require hard work to achieve. Hang on, though, if I work hard in my profession then by this principle, I have worked hard to obtain and deserve these pleasures. It’s completely fair if I want to just enjoy life. But this logic has one key flaw - pleasure is a consequence of not taking the easy route. Therefore, if one works a profession that’s difficult, they will likely derive great pleasure from it, however, this is different to pleasure that is pursued during one’s pastime to ‘escape’ their work. The latter may, at the very least, counteract the former and, at worst, develop a dependency on it. When talking of such pleasures, there is almost and infinite choice in the modern world, meaning that we can always try to maximally derive pleasure. This is the root of the never-ending rat race, on a ladder that has no end, whose rungs become further separated the higher we climb. These greater distances require more and more of one’s soul to be sold. It then becomes incredibly easy to become passive and fall into this cycle - confusing what we want and need, which the late David Foster Wallace believed is the root of most human suffering.

However, this is not to say that one should simply do nothing and deny themselves life experiences. For, ultimately, all that life is is a collection of experiences, with doing nothing, importantly, being one of these. It’s simply that there cannot be purity in one’s actions if they are performed from a place of fear, as when pursuing pleasure. Contrarily, if performed from the conscious mind, then actions become pure and clarity arises, allowing true joy and happiness to surface. Moreover, if we shift away from the pursuit of pleasure towards that of presence, then all experiences will provide deep joy. Coming back to the ladder, at least in my view, there’s little mention about the highly unstable foundations of the current ladder and the expansiveness and power of an alternative foundation constructed from going inwards. If we wish to climb to the top of a stairless tower, we should not place our ladder in quicksand. Instead, we would place it on strong granite. It’s no different to life. Surely, one would rather it’s foundation to be constructed upon conscious, pure thoughts and actions, not unconscious, impure ones.

When thinking about pleasure, Freud came to mind. Particularly, his pleasure principle. I’ve not read any of his works, only read some snippets here and there from commentaries. Freud’s pleasure principle states that pleasure is something that one derives from the development of the id, which constructs the ego that resides in the unconscious mind, but that pleasure is also a primitive desire. Therefore, we instinctively act if our minds are predominated by this principle, rather than another principle called the reality principle. But, interestingly, Freud says that the ego operates through the reality principle, not the pleasure principle, which should lead to us taking actions that are more societally appropriate and well thought out. The issue is, we are now constantly surrounded by the persistent ubiquity of marketing and advertisements, which plays with our psyche, tapping into our primitive desires for basic pleasures like food, water, warmth, and sex; exploiting these in a way that distorts reality. This dysregulates our internal reward system. Consequently, what we’ve been conditioned to believe as societally appropriate stems from the desire for pleasure, which themselves feed the reality. This develops a cyclic, possibly irreversible inertia as we’re caught in this delusional, unconscious state.

In Martineau’s case, the inertia that he finds himself in and wanting to get away from is an inertia that may appear like a dream on the surface. A high-paying job working in a top law firm, affording to live comfortably in London. What more could you want? But, after some time, he realises that most of his life is passive and spent in the office. From early in the morning, sometimes until past midnight the following day, he finds himself working incredibly long hours in the pursuit of success. At least success as viewed in Western society. We hear similar stories time and time again, but I suspect that many individuals never realise the danger of the inertia that they’re caught in. We see the destruction that big corporations are causing, both to society and ecology, but we chose to be blind. For the collective inertia facilitates the continuation of behaviours that catalyse the deterioration of the fabric of society. So we feel compelled, if not motivated, to join the rat race. To help shift even more wealth towards the richest of the rich, away from the poor.

Remember the water analogy from before? We’re deeply immersed in this water, without knowing so. Psychologically, we’re so far away from the surface that many of us don’t even bother peering above it to explore the expanse beyond the body of water. The water’s inertia simply takes us along, only increasing in strength the longer we stay in. I don’t mean to say what’s right or wrong. That’s not up to me to decide. But what’s true is this has succeeded exceptionally at creating a close- and narrow-minded society, one which contains swaths of ignorance and delusion relating to what brings true happiness. Otherwise, why would we be accumulating so much unnecessary material wealth while simultaneously destroying this beautiful Earth?

A separateness from nature

Talking about the Earth, I believe that a major component - or perhaps a flaw - in the present inertia is our disrespect and lack of appreciation for the Earth that we live on. For the nature that surrounds us and that we are part of. In the pursuit of pleasure and material wealth, we’ve succeeded at undermining ecology through prioritising the economy. This stems from dogmatic viewpoints such as ‘divide and conquer’ and ‘growth at all costs’, which have long been truths, not mere hyperboles. The result of such thinking is that we’ve ended up at war with nature. This was the case far before the Industrial Revolution, even. It’s just that, the longer we proceed with this dogma of us vs nature, then the greater the response from nature.

So, where does inertia come into all of this? Well, if one looks at the present state of the world, it becomes apparent that this ideology has developed a very powerful inertia. One so great that we’re now dependent on things that are 8by nature* so harmful to all nature, us included. Many of our current systems have been founded upon such unstable foundations that the only way to continue as we are is to carry on undermining our vital relationship to nature. Our collective psychology, on the whole, is still one that’s mostly egocentric, not even tiptoeing much at all on being sociocentric - for why do we still see the prevalence of things such as homelessness and poverty? But just because there’s a large resistance to doing something doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be done. Our present inertia contains small pockets of sociocentric thinking, with only specks of ecocentric thinking - the type of thinking that we desperately need much more of. And, why is this? I believe it relates to the present inertia allowing us to continue with habits that we do not feel ashamed of, as in Waldie’s parents’ case, despite their impacts on ecology and nature.

Take, for example, the food system. As its foundation is predominated by egocentric thinking, we’re now realising the destruction that it is causing to both our health, and the health of the planet. We’re eating more and more food-like substances and less and less whole foods, and of those whole foods, the vast majority of supply chains - spanning from production to distribution - are highly unethical, unsustainable, and unjust to say the least. So, why not just address the root of these problems and implement better policy? Inertia. There’s so much inertia, which is driven by things such as lobbying of the government by big corporations, that we’d rather continue as we are than reconsider the fundamental workings of the food system. The result? We continue to degrade our environment, almost to the point that our impacts are now close to being irreversible. Or at least the inertia that we’re in may be irreversible, for it takes time to shift the tides and start to see ourselves as part of nature once again, not simply separate.

Ultimately, we must kick ourselves out of this antagonistic inertia by realising the symbiosis between us human beings and the natural environment.

This post was rather more abrupt than some of my other posts, but I wanted to keep it as such so as not to diverge too much. It is certainly easy to do so when discussing such a broad topic, and I think one could write many books about this idea of inertia. My aim here was to present the idea to make us think about whether we’re caught up, as individuals and society, in a potentially irreversible inertia. This word sparked a clear cause and effect in my head, the cause being the pursuit of pleasure, and the effect being a separateness from nature, but also from each other and ourselves. Of course, it’s far more nuanced than this, but I suspect that many of the issues that we currently face could be addressed far more constructively in the clarity that could be gained from stepping to the sidelines of the dominant inertia.