LOVE AND GRAVITY (2)

This Write-up is inspired by Shawn Forno’s “The Science of “Romantic Gravity” and a sequel to its original article Love and Gravity(1),

A Star Spangled Universe

I know someone who likes to think of us(human beings) as stars, our entire constitution of flesh, blood and soul is but a massive hot ball of light. When a person is born, the galaxy births a young bright star and when she dies, she supernovas and sinks into a vacuum of nothingness, a blackhole. If people are born and die everyday on earth, then imagine the flurry of celestial activity up there, the clustering cascade of stars emerging and destructing, the unimaginable beauty, the excess despoliation of light and the introductions into fresh darkness , the heat, the noise, the colours. Just Imagine.

Comparatively speaking, we are Stars, and stars along with other celestial bodies in our universe are under the influence of gravitational pull that greatly affect their locations, proximities and relationships. Gravity is boundless and is not limited to earth alone but permeates every little nook and cranny of our interminable universe. According to Kepler’s law of planetary motion and observations of how planets gravitationally affect themselves in space, I will talk about 3 common kinds of orbital systems and how they are strikingly similar to our Love lives.

Pls remember that I am NOT a romantic relationship expert.

BINARY STAR RELATIONSHIP

Binary Stars are two stars orbiting a common center of mass. In less scientific terms. A binary star is a system of two stars, revolving, spiralling and transferring each other with almost equal amounts of mass, heat and light.

Did you know that more than four-fifths of the single points of light we observe in the night sky are actually two or more stars orbiting together and the most common of these are binary stars? Even the closest star system to our planet earth- Alpha Centauri — has a pair of binary stars. It is also believed that every star in our system was born with a companion star, even our Sun has a soulmate, the infamous Nemesis, the suns big, bad runaway lover that once fried the earth and escaped from our orbit billions of years ago.

Binary Stars, 50:50

Have you ever seen two people love each other with seemingly equal amounts of passion? two hearts revolving around each other with so much romantic fury, enough to destroy anything that comes in their path? This 50:50 relationship is what I term a Binary star relationship and they are spiritual, rare, intimate and sometimes, even weird.

Chris: I have loved my wife since I was 3, ever since the first day I saw her on her 1 year old birthday party wearing that beautiful dress.

Me: What?? .. how the hell do you even remember that?

Chris: I just do bro, (Smiles)….

And, Every year we renew our oaths by pricking our thumbs and drinking our blood, to remind ourselves that we belong to each other, that we are One..

Me: Oh WOW, OK thats emm… that’s… thats deep.

Doesn’t the pricking hurt tho?..

Chris: She can never hurt me man.

Me: Jesus Christ..

Chris: Yeah and whenever she needs to go to the toilet, I go with h….

Me: OKAY thats Enough!

……

AN attempt to explain true love

Binary Star lovers are an absolute miracle. They imprint, betroth and seal, confident that they belong to each other and nothing, not pressure, not pain, not sickness, or even death, could ever separate them or alter how they feel. It was predetermined from the beginning, a match made in heaven.

Binary stars could keep very close or very far distances from themselves but still they are attracted by the same centre of mass. That means no matter how far they are from each other, they are drawn and destined to be fused as one. Hence, Binary Star lovers have been burdened with the curse of mutual dependence on each other to function, to strive, to survive. They display their affection proudly and publicly because nothing and nobody else matters. Their love floats on the pontoons of reciprocity and selfless sacrifice, and are ever ready, without hesitation, to lay down their lives for each other. Their love becomes firmly established because of how much they appreciate one another, they are to each other, literally, a dream come true.

This is not for everybody but- Is there someone whom you occasionally unexpectedly dream about that it wakes you up at midnight??

LUNAR ORBIT RELATIONSHIPS

A lunar orbit is an elliptical motion, its not a perfect circle. What does this mean?

The moon revolves around the earth but not as a perfect circle like the other planets, but with imbalanced, elliptical movements, sometimes drawing closer and sometimes going farther away from the earth. When the moon is closest to earth, its called an Apogee and when its farthest its called a Perigee. Does this kinda remind you of your relationship ?

Fighting and making up is a constant phenomenon in love because conflict is an inevitable part of any longstanding human relationship, especially ones that involve the most intimate parts of our lives. I describe this oscillating fight and make-up moments as Perigee and Apogee moments

Fathers be good to your Daughters

Two people in love fight for a lot of reasons and most of the time its the inability to meet each others expectations and needs, even though those needs might be complex, personal and unique to the complainant. In the 2003 hit song “Daughters”, John Mayer paints a picture where he can’t meet his lover’s needs because the girl apparently, inherently had emotional issues which he indirectly blamed on her parents. I still find the song quite amusing.

This could mean that sometimes lovers fight, just because we are deeply flawed in our natures and we all have emotional issues we need to work on, which is absolutely normal. Come to where I’m from and its a regular occurrence. At sunrise, your man gets you upset and you begin to move mad, toss your wig to the sky (true story, I seen this shit b4), heels off, roar like a lioness, and smash your iPhone on his car windscreen(so he sees how you just creatively damaged two valuable things at once) and you swear in the name of a powerful deity that if he comes any closer, you both might terminate him. Come dawn, you guys make up and you’re in his arms again, smiling, giggling and laughing hysterically to his every word and touch, like a lil puppy dog.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. When you fight with your lover and she gets upset, takes the keys, slams the door and drives away, then blocks you shortly after, you feel a sting of regret in your chest. And then you try calling her a few times but she doesn’t pick, and she finally switches off her phone. Damn, what have I done? So you hop on your playlist and play a Passenger song;

Never knew you’ve been high till you feeling low

Never hit the road till it starts to snow,

Never knew u love her till you let her go..

That pretty much explains it..

SOLAR ORBIT RELATIONSHIPS

A Solar Orbit is a system where the planets revolve around the Sun, the heavyweight. Because the Sun is the heaviest object in our solar system, everything just gravitationally pulls towards it, revolves and benefits from it without the Sun really getting anything in return.

“If the sun broke up with us tomorrow, Earth would spin off into oblivion, a cold dead lifeless rock eating ice cream and watching Maid in Manhattan. Again.” — Shawn Forno

A good number of couples are stuck in solar orbit relationships, where one party drastically outweighs the other just as the sun drastically outweighs(330,000 times more) the earth in every aspect and pulls the smaller object out of its path so that it revolves around it. The Sun doesn’t really need the earth as much, but the earth needs the Sun for practically everything, sunlight, warmth, oxygen and food production. If there was no Sun, the earth will first spiral away on its natural course in a straight line then gradually die out and fade into darkness to its lonely, painful demise. Scary stuff..

SUN’S CHEATIN’

Solar Orbit relationships are one sided and polygamous by their very nature. If you love someone so much that you literally worship that person and he/she doesn’t reciprocate in return, then better know you might not be the only planet in THAT orbit. Even though you might be the most beautiful, deserving rock in your surrounding lightyear, yo lover might just have a Venus in Abuja or a Mars in Kano, or probably some hot peppered stew Jupiter in the village in Nnewi. And all of you are milking from the same Milky Way. Ji ma Sun!(meaning: Wake Up in yoruba language)

So If you’re in a relationship like this and you find it hard to get out, you’re pretty much screwed. Why??

Science also reveals to us that about a billion years ago, I don’t know long exactly, Mars and Venus and other planets were destroyed by the Sun’s flares. So its possible to be destroyed by the very one whom your life revolves around.

Awwwn does he kindle a fire in your heart??, Its the fire for your roasting!!

Note that the relationship between Sun and earth is a bittersweet one because if not for the Ozone layer, the earth would have been stir fry by now. The Ozone layer is the protective figment that shields the earth from the Sun’s gradually destructive Ultraviolet rays and solar flares while the Aurora protects from the Sun’s excessive heat. This is how the Earth ensures she doesn’t get her heart broken. Gotta give her credit!

So when your love meter starts to overheat and a sister tells you “Girl that man gonna be the death-uh-you”, be like Earth and get your Ozone Layer, right now!

Or better still find another Orbit where it ends well for you..