Mass times velocity squared

Today is the one-month anniversary of Lover's Lanes!

A friend at Mozilla tells me that the newest corporate catchphrase is "stop energy." It means approximately the same thing as "resistance." The reason your idea didn't get incorporated into the final version of the product is that it encountered stop energy. My friend poo-poohs this phrase because he sees it as evasive, a way to avoid having to explain who blocked the idea, how, and why. (He also just doesn't like catchphrases.)

I didn't much like the phrase either when he first blogged about it. Since then, though, it's begun to grow on me. "Stop energy" is more flexible than "resistance." Resistance is something you can only encounter from people with the power to nix your project. If you have an idea and a friend discourages you from pursuing it, you wouldn't normally say your idea is hitting resistance, since in principle you don't have to pay any attention to your friend, but it is hitting stop energy. Similarly, self-doubt is not resistance, but it does generate stop energy. Maybe a better synonym for stop energy would be "inertia." It's always struck me as ironic that the First Law of Motion is that things don't move unless pushed.

I'm pushing Lover's Lanes forward like a delicate but burgeoning katamari of narrative and interstate highways, and I'm fortunate to have friends who are cheering me on. But I'm also encountering stop energy from any number of sources. The money is tight. My self-confidence is sporadic. My dad thinks I should be home by mid-August so I can resume my day job as soon as possible. (The bad thing about living with one's parents is that they know how you're spending your time and you have to care what their opinions about it are.) One way or another, this is going to happen. But it will not be without cost. I will have to muster all the "go energy" at my disposal to attain critical mass and escape velocity. (At which point this mixed metaphor would make me a nuclear reaction in space -- in other words, a star -- a mixed metaphor I can live with.) And if I ever return to Earth it will be under changed circumstances. Suddenly the whole journey sounds downright Campbellian. And if mine is an (Anti-)Hero's Journey, the only proper way to go about it is to answer the call to the journey and not come back until the dragon is slain.