In atomic theory, an electron can be in one of several states. For this, I'm thinking about two... the ground state, and the excited state. When the electron is struck by a bit of light, it gets knocked out of it's usual low-energy orbit, and goes as far from it's center as it can without being lost (which is possible, but irrelevant here), into the excited state.
Electrons do not stay in excited states for very long - they soon return to their ground states, emitting a photon with the same energy as the one that was absorbed.
I was talking to a friend, expressing frustration over this project I'm working on, which has my whole life in an excited state... we have reached apogee. I hope. I'm not sure we can be any more in suspense than we are. Nothing can be decided in this state. We are vibrating with anticipation, yet doing nothing while we wait.
My friend reminded me that this state is impossible to sustain for long. We will - I will - plunge back toward my center, having emitted that bright spark of light that sent me spiraling outward in the first place. I've had my epiphany, my collision with a light that blew up my world like a flashbulb in the hours before dawn. I'm working hard, but I'll hit a limit. One that I can't pass, and I'll fall back to the steady state of daily routine again.
In the meantime, I wait, my family with me. I haven't got the spare energy left to do anything else.
We don't think about this, but it's happening constantly all around us. The mechanisms of the universe bounce like animated toys, at a scale we can only imagine. We can't see it happening. Yet... it resonates with life on a scale we can understand. Not just the atom, but the transitions of the chemical reactions I manipulate in the laboratory to give me answers to those questions chemists ask. Reactions happen when you mix certain things together. Energy is released, or absorbed, and eventually you reach an equilibrium again, with equal amounts and a steady state. Over and over, life gives you this transition. Some days, you get in the car and go someplace. That's a small one. Some days, you decide you're going to move across the country and establish yourself anew. That's a big one. In both cases, just like in a chemical reaction, we often need a catalyst to get us over that hump of needed energy in the transition state. In chemistry, we apply heat to add that energy, or we use another chemical that helps reduce the ramp-up slope to reaction. In life, catalysts can be external or internal.
We get in the car to drive to work, even though we are sleepy and it would be less energy to drive to work. We do this based on an inner catalyst called responsibility. Short-term energy expenditure for long-term gain. Chemicals can't have internal catalysts. Humans can. We can also have external ones... But now I'm pushing the hard deadline of my clock, and I am reacting to that with publishing this essay.
*flash* a photon is emitted.