When I was a kid I used to entertain myself by making a mess in the bathtub.
I would slide up and down, creating a huge wave of water that would crash over the sides and get all over the bathroom floor.
Needless to say, my mom was never too happy. She always wondered why I got so much water on the floor.
If you’ve ever played on the swings, you put this same principle to work. Even little kids can put advanced physics into play without having a clue why or how. They just know it’s fun.
I also discovered how to apply this to stop signs. In my neighborhood, they were attached to these metal poles, that were stuck into the ground with cement.
If you pushed with all your might, you cold bend the pole maybe a few inches off its axis.
But if you pushed it in congruence with its resonance frequency, pretty soon you could it shaking back and forth by a couple feet.
Resonance is a powerful force of nature. Well, not really a force, more like a principle.
Water in the bathtub, hanging legs on a swing set, and a pole all have their own specific resonance frequency.
If you stimulate the system in congruence with this naturally occurring frequency, you can get some pretty impressive movement.
Once there were a group of soldiers walking across a bridge. They were walking in cadence, as soldiers sometimes do. Only the frequency of their march matched the frequency of the bridge.
This produced some massive oscillations, and the bridge collapses.
That’s why soldiers always break cadence when crossing bridges.
Humans also have a kind of internal resonance frequency.
We come preprogrammed with certain instincts, desires, and motivating forces.
If you act in opposition to these, you’re going to have tough going. Kind of like swinging your legs too fast or too slow on the swing. Lots of work, but much to show for it.
On the other hand, when you act in congruence with your internal triggers (or the triggers of others) just a little bit of effort can produce some massive results.
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