I’ve been thinking a lot about Newton’s laws of motion. And President-elect Obama. And Chuck Bass.

Yes, this is what I do in my spare time.

Last week’s Gossip Girl found a drunken Chuck Bass, ambling along the edge of the roof of a very tall building. One misstep and he’d be splat! on the pavement like the bottle of Jack that slipped from his hand moments earlier.

But Gossip Girl is a television series. And Chuck (and Blair) are the reasons I tune in. So the threat of his death was a false one. As any avid GG fan can tell you they aren’t going to kill Chuck Bass.

Certainly not after his next-level performance in the “O Brother, Where Bart Thou” episode. In fact, if I had an award for Outstanding Emotional Range in a one-hour episode, Ed Westwick would get it. Again and again.

In that same episode, Blair finally says those three words (“eight letters”) to Chuck. “I love you.” She is hoping to move him, which is to say she is hoping Chuck will stay. He leaves.

A week later on the roof, it’s Blair’s impassioned plea that pulls Chuck back from the ledge. Turns out, her words hold as much power as any gravitational force.

Newton’s first law of motion states, “An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”

In other words, objects tend to keep doing whatever it is they are doing unless acted upon by an outside force. Movement begets movement.

In the opening interlude of Mos Def’s 1999 classic “Black on Both Sides” he says,

“…people be askin me all the time,
“Yo Mos, what’s getting ready to happen with Hip-Hop?”
(Where do you think Hip-Hop is going?)
I tell ‘em, “You know what’s gonna happen with Hip-Hop?
Whatever’s happening with us”
[…]
People talk about Hip-Hop like it’s some giant living in the hillside
coming down to visit the townspeople
We (are) Hip-Hop
Me, you, everybody, we are Hip-Hop
So Hip-Hop is going where we going”

The same can be said of the next four years.

We talk about our democracy like it’s some entity unrelated to every individual citizen. But it’s actually us.

What you do and say matters at least as much as Blair Waldorf’s words and actions. Maybe even more so, since you are not a fictional character.

Jay Smooth covered this in much greater detail, so I won’t rehash. Point is there is movement now. Where do you want to go?

P.S.
A little theme music for your journey.