The Anatomy of Spring Influence Part I

In basic physics, a spring is a device that stores potential energy. Potential energy is the type of energy that is stored within an object; the energy is there but its action cannot be felt until it is released. The amount of potential energy stored in a spring defines how much force (technically known as spring force) the spring can exert. The spring force is the force exerted by a compressed or stretched spring upon any object that is attached to it. 

Most springs obey Hooke's law. In very simple language, Hooke's law states that the amount of force that a spring exerts increases or decreases as the length by which it is compressed/stretched increases or decreases. Thus, the amount of potential energy stored in a spring corresponds to the amount of load it carries. By extension, the spring force also corresponds to the amount of load on the spring. The reason for these relationships is that the length of compression or stretch in a spring depends directly on the weight of the load on the spring; the heavier the weight, the more the compression or stretch, the more the potential energy stored in the spring, and the greater the spring force.

One important thing about springs and the load they carry is that if the load is removed suddenly, the potential energy in the spring is released explosively and all the spring force pushes the spring back to its original uncompressed/unstretched position. In other words, springs store energy when they are loaded and they tend to 'explode'  when the load is suddenly removed. The greater the load, the greater the 'explosive power'. That's the exact reason why auto-mechanics are extremely careful with shock absorbers. And it's the exact reason why you should also be wary! Springs, whether compressed or stretched, are powerful. For the rest of this post I will only consider the compression part.

Suppressed emotions, hidden sin and past mistakes are like compressed springs. They will one day explode if the load is not carefully eased; and the the aftermath is hardly ever nice. As a matter of fact, the more effort goes into the suppression, the more energy is stored and the more potentially explosive the whole thing gets. Being aware of the potential explosion, most of us simply pack more load onto the spring - for instance, we tell a lie to try to cover up some misdeed, we tell an additional lie to cover up the one already told, we start avoiding the people who hold us accountable and gravitate towards those with whom anything goes... 

However, that is not a reasonable course of action because every additional load, rather than alleviate or remove the problems, simply aggravates them. In fact, packing more load onto the spring leads to some sort of vicious cycle where the potential explosiveness becomes worse and we try to prevent it by adding more load thereby increasing the potential explosiveness, until someday....God forbid! Even worse, the spring begins to influence one's line of reasoning and approach to issues, wanting to desperately avoid anything coming to close to the spring even if they're beneficial, and gravitating towards anything that takes attention away from the spring even if they're deadly.

The best thing to do once you sense a spring - a grudge, a sin, a mistake, suppressed anger, bitterness, whatever - is to immediately stop loading and start easing the load already added, carefully and steadily. That is the only way to avoid the explosion. In the next post, we'll consider two true stories as examples.