The See Saw

I feel as though I am being pulled in a million little directions, I only have so many muscle fibers. Which reminds me, the Body Worlds II exhibit is in Chicago.

I recently introduced my son to the seesaw. He was amazed. Of course being bigger, I didn't sit on the end as he did. He's only 35 lbs and I'm, uh... at least twice that, three times even. So I sat closer to the pivot point. I pushed off the ground in order to help his little feet touch the ground. He got the hang of it and pushed his little feet in order to help me back down - well sort of, he did his little best. Ever notice, it's not the other way around, the person on top doesn't bounce down to help the other rise. Try it sometime, the one with two feet on the ground almost always is the one with the strength to keep it moving. You can sit there and leave the other person out there dangling, or even funnier, you can jump off and let the other person fall on their ass. You do have choices, but if you want to enjoy the ride of the seesaw, you gotta keep it moving by helping each other to the ground. The closer in weight you are and equal distance from the pivot the more this becomes important.

And how do we get off this seesaw? Well, one way is the one on the ground could carefully get off while holding the plank with their arms and than lifting the plank to allow the other person to get off. But this doesn't work if the first person getting off doesn't have sufficient arem strength. So what do we do? We balance the plank and both get off together.