Flywheels

Not Exactly a blog – tedgresham.com

What the hell is going on?

Have you ever noticed those big iron wheels on the sides of steam engines?  They are called flywheels and they serve a purpose.  They provide a steady momentum to smooth out the clanking motion of the engine itself.  This morning I was watching a little video about flywheels used in old factories on YouTube.  (I watch that kind of thing all day.)  It was a twenty-minute story that requires some understanding of engineering so I’ll not go in depth.  Basically very huge, heavy wheels were attached to the shaft of a steam-driven engine to smooth out the motion of the engine, which jerked back and forth as it ran.  Great idea.

Those big flywheels were dangerous and nobody uses steam anymore but flywheels are used in lots of places.  Cars have them to help smooth the ride.  Airline engines use them.  Flywheels are everywhere.

The vast majority of people in the world have their own internal flywheel that smooths the jerky-motion of thought and helps them move through life without their mind jerking around like a wino on a bad day.  My flywheel is broken.  Or maybe I was born without one.  Either way, when the engine of my brain goes banging around there’s nothing to keep it from crashing through ‘oh shit’ and ‘ta-dah’ moments as it chooses.  There’s nothing to smooth things out.  Consequently, my thoughts are jumbled and come sometimes too fast for me to catch hold of.  Then I spout off and get myself in trouble.

There’s not been a flywheel handy for me to use my entire life.  I’ve just banged from one place to the other, different jobs, different professions, different fields.  Now at the end of all this I find too much emptiness and confusion, and lots of regrets.  The one thing I do not regret, though, is being me.  I think too often people’s flywheels keep them from being who they are.  Instead they merge with the crowd.  Everyone’s flywheel gets in sink.  Maybe it takes that for society to function but it seems sad that so many people just go along to get along, leaving their own personal ambitions and desires.  Sad.

Maybe I won’t ever get you to take control of your own flywheel a little better.  At least I hope you can travel along the road I’ve gone down, if only vicariously, and figure out what all the noise is.  Maybe.

Ted Gresham, March 17, 2026