Soldier
- Kris Driessen
- Feb 13
- 2 min read
The first law of Newtonian physics states "A body remains at rest, or in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, except insofar as it is acted upon by a force." Whether you're stuck in one spot or moving along a trajectory, without a push or a pull in a different direction, nothing is going to change. Even worse; the third law circles back to smack us in the face with the reality of equal opposition to every applied force. Life is going to resist your efforts.
In the face of insurmountable resistance to change (apathy) how do we push forward and then keep that momentum we've gained? It's been a year since I launched this site. I've kept up with experiments in colour theory and expanded my skillset. Deciding to follow a random list of my interests down a rabbit hole has changed my life, I'll say that much. For a year, I have pursued learning about colour, space, plants, rocks, screens - and how we interact with these things. There have been setbacks, like when I fell off the deck in March trying to capture the aurora season's first big geomagnetic storm.
It wasn't all stumbles; I spoke in front of a crowd of hundreds of people about how concept mapping can save effort and dollars in healthcare spaces.
Returning home, I dove in. Unfortunately, some of my grandest ideas failed rigorous tests and I had to re-think my approach. I saw a lot of red on spreadsheets this year.
Sometimes my initial successes ended up being failures when I looked at them from a different angle.
But each experience was a lesson motivating me to keep going, and I met goals I'd thought were out of my reach. I made ink out of rocks and my first GitHub commits.
Nothing is ever going to be perfect. But if I don't try - if I don't start, I will never get there. Thankfully, I'm just getting going and there are plenty more chances to stumble across something amazing.
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