Volume & Pressure

Pretty much all of you know by now that I am seriously considering joining the Navy and becoming an Intelligence Officer...but unfortunately as I have spent the last several months interviewing former Naval Officers, I have learned that two subjects that I have completely neglected for the last 5 or so years, Math and Science, are at the heart of the test that qualifies one to join at the Officer level. Yikes.

In my attempt to study things out, I decided to take a practice test and then look up the answers that I got wrong on wikepedia. One of the test questions that I totally missed was the relationship between volume and pressure; in other words, I had no concept of the relationship between the two existing laws of nature. Here is the rule. Apparently, when the volume of a certain object decreases, the pressure on and around it increases. Conversely, when the volume of a certain object increases, the pressure upon it literally disseminates.

Interesting...so, can it be surmised by the physical laws of the universe can also apply to natural laws that exist in human relationships? The Sociologist in me had to ask.


When I was in college, I had a class about gender roles and stereotypes. Not surprisingly, we discovered as a class (via a documentary entitled "Tough Guise") that throughout the past couple of decades images of women in the media have become extraordinarily waif-like (models...skinnier than ever) and images of men in the media have gotten HUGE. Gone are the days of Marilyn Monroe's curves or where a tights sporting Superman of the 1950's can get away with having regular sized muscles. Nope, it's ancient history. GI Joe's action figurine bodies have literally tripled in their upper body size...along with their weapons, not to mention Batman's ever expanding muscular bodysuit. However, the physical implications and changes in gender expectations our culture has experienced throughout recent decades are only a small portion of what is happening on the spiritual level. Violence has increased exponentially...and so have eating disorders; two consequences that show that what is going on is more than physical changes.

Volume & Pressure case in point: Self Esteem.

Imagine a healthy, happy 7th grade girl walks into a room of preteen counterparts that she is not familiar with. She looks around and notices that everyone seems to be wearing a certain trend of clothes that she knows her family cannot afford, and even though she feels good about her outfit at first, it being her outfit of choice, her good feelings begin to evaporate as she is unable to retain her volume in the room with people who seem to be wearing something else. The pressure to change what is different is not direct, but due to the contrast that completely surrounds her, she surmises that perhaps because she is the only one like her, she might just be wrong. The more she thinks about what is different, the more she doubts how much volume she is supposed to have as her own unique individual self. Then, inevitably a mean girl or some jerk appears and plants some thoughtless remark to send her into a tailspin, if she internalizes their judgements. She begins to feel more and more pressure to change and meet other people's expectations and less and less capable of making her own unique impact on the world. Ultimately, the choice is hers to resist the pressure and go her own way, but the choice is hard at first, for there is a lot of real pressure to resist. If she disappeared and blended in, then, she surmises, the pressure would then disappear as well.

Due to the laws of physical nature, we know that this is not so, for as volume decreases, pressure continues to rise. If this girl caves now she will forever be in a chase to be defined by what the world would make of her, which influence ultimately deforms people and relationships. If she would only take a stand to be unique, draw a clear line around what and who she is and make it abundantly clear that she has volume on purpose...something miraculous happens. The pressure to change is literally no longer in effect on her, but the pressure is immediately deflected upon the pressuring party to make the change. Instead of making changes to herself, others are now in the pressure pot to accept her for who she is, which they are not prepared to do, so they end up going away. Her volume increases, and she cares less and less for how she seems to fit in.

I knew a girl once who made ugly and poor seem as desirable as Hollywood. She died at twenty one, as I am sure, the happiest person that ever lived. It's not because she had everything, but because she had nothing and embraced it with all her heart. As they said in the olden days: "I've got plenty of nothin', and nothin' is plenty for me."