Kimberly Emerson

Earlier this week, Christine O’Donnell walked out on an interview with Piers Morgan.  Evidently, he kept asking her questions she didn’t want to answer.

Ah, poor Ms. O’Donnell.  Just one more victim of Newton’s Third Law of Motion.

Make no mistake, folks.  Some people will say complimentary things about Isaac Newton, but don’t be fooled by those suck-ups.  The truth is, even though the man has been dead for almost three centuries, Sir Isaac’s nefarious legacy haunts us every day.

To quote his law in the most literal translation of the old troublemaker’s own words:

To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.

Or, to simplify:

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

(I want to credit Schoolhouse Rock for teaching me this, but I can’t find a good link to post.  Maybe I’m wrong about that attribution.)

Oh, you thought that was something you were allowed to forget as soon as you finished your final exam in science class?  Poor, misguided fool.  This law will plague you and Ms. O’Donnell for the rest of your lives.

When you do things, you change the course of history.   Maybe in a big way, maybe in a small one, but you change it.  Back to the Future tried to teach us: you don’t mess with the space-time continuum.  This rule goes beyond time travel, it also applies in the here and now.  Everything we do, every day, sends ripples out into the universe, making up that continuum as we go along.  Sometimes, it means that if you stand up to a bully in high school, you won’t be so afraid of people later in life.  Other times, it means that if you tell an interviewer you don’t want to talk about something, that will become the very thing he most desperately wants to discuss with you.

If I had been Ms. O’Donnell’s interview coach (in some strange alternate universe where there is the slightest possibility that that would happen), I would have advised her to take advantage of this.  You don’t want to talk about gay marriage?  Okay, well, I will be a forgiving person and not mention that you probably should have thought of that before you talked about it a lot in the past (see here and here), because we can only change things from this point forward (at least until the flux capacitor is perfected).  If everything has an equal and opposite reaction, what you want to do is to show interest in the things you don’t want to talk about.  Piers says “Hello, Christine,” and you say, “Hello, Piers, and thank you for letting me come on your show to talk about my position on gay marriage.”  Get it?  He’s immediately on his guard.  He thinks you’re trying to steer the interview, and as the host he can’t let that happen.  He wants to ask piercing questions, to get you to reveal things you usually keep hidden.  If he thinks you want to talk about gay marriage, it will be the last subject he is likely to broach.

It has been suggested that Ms. O’Donnell and Mr. Morgan set up the demise of the interview ahead of time.  (Both of them could use the publicity.)  If that’s true, they understood Newton’s Law quite well, thank you very much.  Set up something you don’t seem to want in the news, and the information will spread like a flesh-eating virus.  (I hear there’s one of those on the loose, too.  Forewarned is forearmed, or at least fore-panicked.)

Reserving judgment about those two, the rest of the world still seems a little slow on the concept.  The other day, I signed an online petition for Greenpeace, asking tuna companies to stop destroying other sea creatures while they fish for tuna.  The fishing companies responded by sending Greenpeace a cease-and-desist letter.  Really, folks?  Send Greenpeace a letter telling them to give up?  Are you secretly backing the protesters?  Because I’m not sure I can think of a more direct way to add fuel to their fire than to tell them that they are indeed bothering you.  People associated with Greenpeace have been the victims of “phone tapping, death threats, violence and even state terrorism” according to Wiki.  A stern legal talking-to will probably not strike the desired fear in their hearts.  Who knows, you might want to explain what precautions you do take, offering to discuss it with them at length.  Be sure to keep your voice a measured monotone.  They might give up out of sheer boredom.  (Greenpeace is known for their tenacity, however, so you might just want to cave now.)

Then there was the case of the doctor I saw when I first moved to L.A.  Fortunately, I have a mental block about his name, or I’d be really tempted to use it and open myself to a lawsuit.  I experienced some fairly severe anxiety upon returning to Los Angeles in 2000.  For several years beforehand, I’d been at acting school and living with family so that I could pay off some debt.  The move in 2000 represented the first time in four years that I had to worry about paying rent and feeding myself from my very own paycheck.  Yes, I’d done it before, but rent had gone up about 33% since then, and my wages had not.  Seeing my doctor, I confessed that I had averaged about three hours of sleep a night for the past two weeks, including one night where I hadn’t slept at all.  It was definitely affecting my behavior, and friends were worried.  My doctor prescribed Prozac, and when I expressed reservations about it, sighed deeply, his face getting redder by the second as though a vein in his forehead might actually pop, and told me in a tight voice that I needed to take it because “who knows what you might do next.”  I was also seeing a counselor at the time.  Upon hearing the doctor’s advice, he told me my homework for the week was to find a new doctor.  (He also explained to me, in a calm and reassuring voice, the benefits of medication and why I really didn’t need to feel bad about taking it.)

The doctor more or less told me that I needed to take the meds so that I wouldn’t go completely insane.  My anxiety ratcheted up to meet his level and informed me that downing pills would mean that I was already crazy.  Score another point for Insidious Isaac’s idea.

That doctor (I’m happy to say he’s no longer my doctor), for all his scientific training, did not grasp the Third Law of Motion.  Sadly, he seems to have lots of company.  Since I can’t force them all to go back to class and study harder, I will do my best to summarize it:

If you existed in a vacuum, your world would be self-cleaning.  You don’t, and it isn’t.

Working with the concept, maybe we can eliminate some frustration from life.  After all, we’re going to have to go along with the crazy old codger on this one.  Isaac Newton is no longer alive, so we can’t thrash him soundly for this notion – and as the saying goes, if you can’t beat him, join him.

Kimberly can’t waste time battling the Third Law of Motion. She is getting older and needs all her energy to fight gravity.

Tags: Back to the Future, Christine O'Donnell, Piers Morgan, Prozac, Schoolhouse Rock, Sir Isaac Newton, Third Law of Motion