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The Physics of Relationships and Desires

"Osmosis is the spontaneous net movement of solvent molecules through a semi-permeable membrane into a region of higher solute concentration, in the direction that tends to equalize the solute concentrations on the two sides”.

A basic scientific phenomenon that we studied in high school science which exists and is at work, with or without our knowledge, for life and other natural occurrences to go on. Life just works, on its own. We don’t control it but there are many such scientific phenomena that have been working since times immemorial, continue to work right now as we are going about our lives at this very moment and will continue to work in times to come and without which life in this planet and other planets, if there is any, would cease.
When we delve deep into the relation between this physical phenomenon and our mental make-up, it seems to govern even subtler aspects of our lives – our likes, dislikes, desires, cravings etc. Whom we make friends with. How our friends circle develops. Why the company of a certain person gives you the good feeling but not others. How the desire to “be someone” or to “be with someone” or to “own something” develops.


We yearn for what we are not, what we don’t possess. As we start making friends in very early childhood, we become friends and it occurs as naturally as any spontaneous natural occurrence. At that age, there is no compulsion to be good with someone and not to be good with someone but somehow, we get stuck with some while not so with others. We have a natural tendency to move towards completeness. Just like nature works its way out as life sprouts through the earth or water finds its way through rocks. When we see some incompleteness in ourselves – this can be a voluntary introspective finding or can be the subtlest of subconscious discoveries (which we may know later in time or may never ever know if we do not introspect honestly) – we tend to move towards people who are good at that particular aspect or skill (in the same manner with which we discovered the incompleteness). This works not only for the people whom we have around in our lives but also to the situations that we create to complete our incompleteness. This also explains what we tend to desire in life. Wherever we feel we are incomplete, our direction tends to move towards the pursuit of a state of “equilibrium”. 

Once we feel complete, that no longer remains a point of interest. We move towards other areas and avenues which our mind, voluntarily or involuntarily, discovers as incomplete. This applies to everything that we desire to become or own. With a good introspective capability, if we are able to understand this phenomenon from physics and see how it applies to our lives, we develop to see things in a different perspective and in the process develop maturity to overcome desperation (a precursor to stress and all other dreaded ailments that we encounter in this age) and understand our desires rather than vilifying them.

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