Newton's 3rd law [Taken from Live Spaces Blog, 25 abril 2006, 5:42]

If you're happy, what usually happens? You smile. Calcium, sodium, and potassium ions inside your brain initiate a Wonderfully-finely tuned electrical chain reaction all the way to your facial muscles, whose cells' actomyosin respond by moving, making each muscle flex in a specific direction, and so you smile. And for reasons labeled "evolutionary", a smile is almost globally considered good.

Have you heard that, just as being happy makes you smile, smiling makes you happy? Have you ever tried it? Yes? No? Well, try it now. Smile. A happy smile. A natural smile. No need to hurry. And not a fake one... just smile.

You know, personally, I like ice cream. Vanilla mostly cause they say chocolate gives you pimples. And when I'm near an ice cream store, I can tell. The cool, moist, vanilla smell whirrs through my nostrils from an unexplainably long distance. And I think of ice cream, the whole package: the brownish cone, the whitish cream, the sweet sweet smell, the blessed taste... even the sticky part when it melts all over my hands.

But if I'm somewhere else, and I think of ice cream by myself, I can smell it too. True. I feel its scent, and if I will it, I feel a sweet remembrance of its taste inside my mouth. (This happens to me with Nestum too. You know, the heavenly-sweet, highly-nutritious grainy baby food produced by Nestle).

Now, getting back to the smile. Did you feel happy? Did you get any thoughts, feelings, or even TRACES of feelings you can relate to happiness? I did. And it simply feels good. This little experiment has already become a happy memory that makes me smile when I recall it. Has it to you?

The brain makes no distinction between living an experience and remembering it, they say.

So if you at any time want to feel happy, try smiling. It'll help.

What does any of this have to do with Newton's 3rd law? Well, action and reaction. If you're happy you smile, and viceversa.

That made me wonder... is happiness, as a feeling, an effect or a cause? It sure causes smiles, but it is also (I promise) caused by smiles. So they're kinda the same thing. Like the sweet smell of ice cream and the ice cream itself. Like the will and the action. Like the thought and the words. Like an idea and the invention.

Thoughts and wills and ideas are given to us. They come out of nowhere sometimes, don't they? They're seeds. Each one is given to us, and we can either take it or dump it. And, should we take it, it'll grow into its corresponding tree only if we allow it to. And it won't if we refuse.

I'm not saying that all the "seeds" should be grown. It's your decision. An idea for a joke? That's a seed. Thought for a witty comment? Suicide thoughts? Urges to jump or laugh or eat or cry or talk or walk or run or shout or dance? Those are seeds. They'll grow IF, and only IF, YOU allow them to.

And once the tree is grown from the seed, it will produce more seeds. Happiness can be contagious. So can depression. So can excitement. The expression of a thought (its tree) distributes its seeds to whoever will take it.

Of course, we usually don't let strange seeds grow. "It could be harmful", we think, or maybe "it probably has no good fruit". OR WORSE: "What will others think?". So we just keep on growing whatever other people grow. The usual kind. But if you don't take the chance, you'll never know. If you're given a strange new seed, analyze it, explore its potential. Don't just discard it cause you don't know it. It may be more than it seems.

If we were all ball-shaped, and somehow managed to kinda move around somehow, would hitting someone to hurt him make any sense? It'd hurt you just the same! Action = reaction, people say Newton said. Any force imposed on the outside is given back to you right away. And it's not just physical; it also applies socially(people usually like whoever likes them, and dislike whoever dislikes them), mathematically (you gotta do the same operation on both sides of the equation to keep it true), socioeconomically (people work so they get paid, and pay so they get stuff), morally (Treat the way you'd like to be treated). Sometimes reactions take time, but they sure happen.