It's all about momentum

Summary

It's all about momentum, innit? In physics and in your life, the only metric you should care about is momentum. I enjoy rally games. What made them truly click for me is understanding that rally driving is all about weight transfer. A car is a spring, and any of your inputs, throttle, brake or steering, unsettles the 1000 kg of steel you're controlling in a particular direction. If you brake too hard, most of the weight moves forward, your steering wheels will have better grip but could easily lock up; the back of the car lifts and sends you spinning. If you steer too hard in one direction, the lateral forces could make you tip over. This phenomenon is especially noticeable when driving older rally cars, which do not have modern tyres and quick-responding engines. You need to remain mindful that you are controlling a hunk of metal moving at large speed, and you need to apply the least amount of force to nudge it in the direction you want. The last thing you want to do is to be abrupt with your inputs and velocity changes. People naturally resist change, and even more so as they get older. We pursue the ideal of being flexible and agile, but that's all aspirational nonsense that is often demanded of us, despite the reality that deep down we are more akin to freight trains, let alone rally cars. Slow to start, slow to change direction, and only once we get going the magic happens. Take the mandated two weeks of yearly holidays, for example. Have they ever been restorative? After a whole year of being immersed in your work, worrying about your daily chores, it's going to take a while to switch off, and a while longer to actually start to get used to the fact that you are in an unfamiliar setting, sleeping in an unknown bed. Why even subject yourself to all this stress for little benefit, one wonders. Your habits and routine condition your momentum, and anything unfamiliar, even if it is sitting on a lovely beach, will feel uncomfortable, and uncomfortable again readjus...