The Fantastic Free Fall

On any given normal day I feel stable; solid; when I step on the floor. I feel supported. It is such a normal mundane phenomenon, that I don’t even think about it, lest be curious.

In life, routine experiences often go unnoticed. Like breathing. But unlike breathing, to be supported by floor is more basic & fundamental. It is more comparable to walking through the space.

Imagine if floors could speak. What if they could howl and shout, every time we walked on them — “Hey watch that step mister!”… “Oh, not you again”… “Why do you keep walking on me all the time? Can’t you just walk on the other side?” … “Don’t you dare put that dirty shoe on me, I just got cleaned-up you moron?”

If floors, all over the world did that, we would be so curious about them everyday. About their nature, their psychology, their voices & their tone. Just because floors don’t speak, doesn’t mean we can’t be curious about them the way they are.

But how would you feel curious about the floor? What can be so thought provoking about the floor? For a starter, I thought of this — “How is it that the floor pushes me back every time I step on it. It pushes me back just the right amount so that I can stand and walk comfortably.”

The only people who seem to be curious about stuff like that are the physicists. But they go on a very different tangent. A Newton like curiosity is complex. It is about finding out the nature of forces, or forces of nature and expressing them as mathematical equations. That’s too far fetched.

I am not asking for that. All I am asking for is a simple curiosity. A simple question. The floor is there, you look down and wonder something about it. Whatever comes to your mind.

So, I wondered — “What if I took the next step and there was no floor? What would happen then? Would I fall freely through the space?”

Thank God, the floor is there. Have you ever imagined what it would be like to fall through space? It’s all dark. You can’t even see your hands or any part of your body. You can touch yourself & feel yourself. You know of your existence. But all you see is darkness. A sci-fi mystery movie sign board could say: “The Free Fall — watch your next step. The floor might not be there.”

But many people actually recreate this feeling artificially. Like if you stepped out of a plane — sky diving; or jumped off a bridge — bungee jumping; or popped out of earth’s atmosphere — space riding…

Looking at the floor, I wondered shouldn’t there be a more approachable way to experience a free fall from the comforts of the home? And I figured there is.

All you have to do is slip or stumble over something at home. It might not be as exciting as a skydive, a bungee jump or a space walk. But it surely has an element of surprise. Which makes it more exciting than just jumping on the floor. It is totally unpredictable. No planning. No preparation. You are walking around normally on the floor inside your home & all of a sudden you get the purest experience of a free fall.

Recently, I experienced such a free fall. In my case it was the office chair that decided to slightly slide back on its wheels.

Do you think furnitures carry any intention in them? I don’t think so. If you place them in a corner, they continue to stay there. They serve their purpose just as they are designed to. They don’t come in your way out of their own will. You move them around. They don’t do anything intentionally.

So tripping over a furniture is as natural as a flash-flood or a volcanic eruption. There is no intention. It is an act of God, if you may.

Coming back to what happened to me. It was lunch time. I was holding my plate. I was midway putting the first bite in my mouth. At the same time, I decide to sit down. So, I squatted down, to sit on my home office chair.

Obviously, home office chairs have wheels these days. There is reason for that.

They are designed for those moments when you are working on the computer but you forget your earphones on the nearby sofa. It’s tormenting — to see the earphones right there in front of your eyes, but your hands can’t reach that far. At that crucial moment, getting up feels like changing the whole course of your life’s purpose. Its frustrating. You reel in anger, crying helplessly in your mind — “Why does it happen like that all time?” The very thought of getting up every time can be torturous.

It is for such occasions that the wheeled office chairs were invented. With a slight push, they let you slide, grab the earphones and come sliding back. They are designed to slide freely, smoothly. The slide gives you a feeling that you didn’t waste any time and effort getting up. It makes you feel you are in control of your destiny — you can control the whole world from that one chair.

Obviously, I am so comfortable with this chair of mine, that sitting on it without thinking, is second nature to me. I can do it blindfolded.

I know the chair. I know the space around that chair. I have been in this space, called home, for last 6 months without stepping out. I can feel everything in here like its connected to my nervous system. I know how my chair behaves. I know how the table next to it behaves. I know how that sofa behaves. I know what they think… I know when they are talking to me…They cannot surprise me. Nothing in that space can surprise me.

But not this time. This time, the chair moved… unintentionally. More than a surprise, it was a moment of truth for me. There was no way to stop the fall. Only its severity could be managed.

If somebody had shot my free fall in a slo-mo video, the first reaction on my face that you would see is that of disbelief & shock. Then few milliseconds later, you would see a strange reaction emerging. The shock turning into a hope. Yes, hope!

This is because as I was falling, I thought I had a chance to prevent the fall. I was hoping that the chair wouldn’t have moved far enough. So if I pushed my buttocks slightly backwards, I would be able to slide them in on the edge of the seat and pull myself into the whole of the seat safely…

But this action of mine, only thickened the plot. The tip of my buttocks pushed the seat further. Beyond the reach of my wiggling tail bone. Now the situation was clear and resolved. I knew it was over. In the next part of the video you would see my hopeful expression turning to a flat acceptance :-|

Now, I had to decide — should I let my hips take the hit or should I let go of the plate & put my hands on the floor to save the hips? This is that kind of a decision that nothing in the world can prepare you for. You have to decide one way or other. There is nothing right or wrong about it. There are only consequences.

This experience got me thinking that this kind of free fall doesn’t happen every day. Rather it cannot happen nowadays. It’s probability of happening is so small that in few years it would be almost unheard of somebody falling like that. Not because people will stop being stupid, but…

Because spaces are getting so packed. We have cramped up so much stuff around us, it will be impossible to recreate such a fall.

In few years from now, while I am falling, my chair would immediately bounce back from the serving robot “BIG GINNIE” who at that point of time would be returning to kitchen to get me water. The chair would hit him and come sliding back just in time to put me back on the seat.

I feel people in olden days have done all the falling that had to be done at homes. Because in those days there was so much space. And less of stuff. Nowadays, there is more stuff and less of space.

But, in a way it is a good thing. Because falling hurts. Or does it?

This is where we tend to take things for granted about falling. What about curiosity? Or, do our hips hurt so bad that we don’t want to be curious. If you looked beyond the hurting hips, you would observe that it is not the falling that hurts, it is the floor, which obstructed the fall.

Falling in itself is so harmless and innocent. Like the space. But before you direct all your wrath & blame towards the floor, remember, it is the same floor that makes you feel stable and solid everyday. And, in my case, it was not even the floor’s fault.

Be it out of anger or curiosity, you could still ask yourself one thing — “What if the floor was not there. Then what?”

Imagine you are falling and the floor is gone. Just like that. Gone. What would happen?

Of, course you wouldn’t get hurt. Instead, in a split second you will be falling freely through empty space, with a plate in your hand.