Inertia is the tendency of a system to continue in the same state or in the same direction. It is the passive ability to resist change.
Living systems are highly dynamic. This notwithstanding, all living beings follow a preferential path, a series of inertial sequences, in an attempt to maintain their homeostasis and preserve their vitality over time.
Any inertial path is based on the recurrent repetition of processes or routines. The automatic part of the individual, the tonal, is in charge of inertial processes.
As a positive consequence, inertia brings stability to systems. However, it can also be expressed in negative ways, especially when we speak about the emotional and cognitive realm. Excessive inertia can turn conservation processes into stagnant schemes, thus stagnating the possibilities for development and evolution.
The decision-making mechanism is what enables changes in inertial directions and modifications in automatic routines in living beings to be promoted. The part of the individual in charge of deciding is the nagual. This is who is at the helm that gives the possibility of establishing new coordinates towards which to go, of exploring different paths than those already travelled and of reaching new previously-unexplored places. It is important to realize that many people believe they are making new decisions, when in reality they are only automatically revalidating old ones, the ones that are holding them in a certain inertia.
A limited number of options are available to the individual at every moment and place: one is the preferred direction, which is inertial; the others are divided between a few more symmetrical alternatives and many others whose nature is more entropic. This range of possibilities is called the degree of freedom: the different directions that lead to really reachable positions from where you are at a certain point in time. Staying for a long time in an inertial lifestyle can result in a loss of flexibility in one's inertia, increased passive resistance to change, and the individual's entrenchment in routine and stagnation.
The arrow of time (which always points towards death) inexorably and urgently pushes the bubbles of living energy that we are, allowing us to live life, but at the same time generating entropy in our systems. Its objective is to force us to draw a concrete line of consciousness and experiences, within the infinite pre-existing possibilities in the fractal of potentiality from which each being emanates, the map of destiny or master matrix. The inertial direction and the place occupied by a being at a given moment is the result of the sum of the inherited inertias, the lived experiences, the acquired nutrients and all the decisions that the individual has taken from the beginning of their life until that moment, within the possibilities available in their own individual map.
To let oneself be carried away by inertia is to choose to enter the next place that requires less work to be reached. This is often not favourable given that evolutionarily superior places often require an extra investment of energy or effort to be conquered, as they are situated in non-inertial directions. Therefore, the warriors of light (those who have chosen to increase their own consciousness as their mission in life) persistently stalk their routines, behaviours, experiences, relationships and decisions. In this way, they remain prepared and alert to the times when good opportunities arise in directions other than the inertial. They need to possess the appropriate reaction speed in order to detect and change routines, behaviours, experiences, relationships or decisions that would prevent them from reaching such places. They then apply or learn the strategies needed to position themselves and remain in the new direction. By making an investment of intent, will and intelligence to reach and fit themselves into the new place, they have a good chance of doing so. If a warrior succeeds, the new position gained on their map of destiny breathes a renewed vitality into their individual matrix, also expanding the consciousness of being at the moment they become one with the new place. Once the new energy and consciousness has been assimilated, one must continue the journey with full attention, looking for new opportunities to fill the existing gaps with luminosity. If this is not achieved, one takes note of what one has learned and remains impeccable while waiting for the next opportunity, since it has been understood that if one is still alive it is because there are still possibilities of evolution available before one dies.
Cognitive inertia generates physical, mental and emotional movements in the form of a loop, which leads the individual to routinely repeat the same patterns over and over again, including long ago in his or her inventory and explanation of the world. This results in an erosion of consciousness of self, the stagnation of learning systems, and an impoverishment of self image. It is the vital ankylosis in which so many live, sometimes even bragging about the long road they have travelled... in circles. Circular movement of thought, word or deed is deadly boring. Sometimes, there are those who yearn, in that inertia, for things to go back to the way they were before. If this is your case, maybe you just do not like how and where you are. You have to understand that those times you want to go back to, were the ones that brought you to the place where you are now.
In the end, decisions are the threads that move our actions and therefore take the role of catalysts of the effects that are observed in our lives and that define both the place we occupy in the world and the quality of our own functioning as conscious and individual beings that are related to the infinite self.
The secret of existence begins to be revealed through deliberate and voluntary control of awakening. But awakening is not enough, because then comes the time to act and to continue.
We begin to awaken the day that the automatism of the chain of antisymmetric decisions begins to be broken – regardless of whether these are inherited or personally acquired – in a sincere and honest attempt to get out of the haze of socially pre-established routines. In this manner, the individual claims his or her nature as a luminous being and begins to modify the trajectory of perverse, erosive and impoverishing inertias, focusing on incorporating and sustaining only routines of power, whose repetition results in an increase in awareness and knowledge of oneself. It is therefore essential to remain in a constant state of quiet alertness, to be one with the flow in which one's own needs for evolution and learning are presented not as impediments, but as opportunities and challenges. Their resolutions, at the right time and in the right way, allow us to recover and recompose the parts of our own being that were lost (or perhaps not achieved) a moment before, in the dark and infinite sea of consciousness. This is how it is possible to form, consciously and voluntarily, a symmetrical part of life, of the luminous individual fractal, manifesting a more sublime and therefore less crude version of the here and now.
Inertia by Chema Sanz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.