The Higher You Go, The Cooler It Becomes.

Way back during my schooling heydays as a young African boy, inquisitive of almost everything the teacher said. One thing that has kept me racking my brains to date was a statement made during one of my usual Geography lessons which is my topic for discussion. This is a geographical principle that states that when one moves to a higher height, temperature generally decreases. This principle is called temperature inversion. Temperature inversion says that with every 1 km one moves above sea level, temperature decreases by 1ºC. On the extreme, when one climbs to a height of between 8km and 16km or 5 miles and 10 miles, temperature decreases by 6.5ºC as you move higher by every 1km.

I was made to understand that as you go up in the atmosphere from the surface of the Earth, it becomes cooler. This is because of motions of the air, and the way that heat from the sun moves around in the atmosphere. The air is transparent at most wavelengths where the Sun is bright. Therefore, most sunlight goes through the atmosphere, hits the ground, and is absorbed, heating the ground. The ground heats the air near the ground, and warms it up. When it gets warm enough, it rises. But the air higher up has lower pressure, so the warm, rising air expands and then cools. The atmosphere is mostly heated from below, and in equilibrium it becomes cooler and less dense in a smooth way as you go up. That was a whole lot of explaining to do.

I never imagined myself anywhere near the stratosphere, so I didn’t take note of that at all, until most recently when this phrase hit my head and I was trying to figure out how it applies in real life. I came to a realisation of the truth in that statement, not in Geographical terminologies but in societal dimensions. In my perspective or any normal human being’s perspective, a cool life comes when you have a quality summative of cash. You may not be a billionaire but there is a certain amount of money that guarantees a good life.

Some people are born into a wealthy family; some have to work their arses off and sweat to achieve that. In a typical company or organization, there is always a rank, from the least paid employee to the C.E.O. The pay scale is never the same for all employees, as a matter of fact, those that do most of the work are the least paid, while the credit goes to the top helm of the company’s rank.  That is why there is the aspect of promotion so that according to your productive nature and input-output ratio, you may be considered for an elevation.

Your comfort as an individual increases with your rank in that organization. From an entry level, say you are at the lowest rank, you will feel the ‘heat’. The intensity of the heat depends on your company and your manager. Some managers will exercise extreme authority on you while trying to massage their managerial ego on your entry level position. The kinds of managers who want to see you sweat literally as they keep demanding that you work, even if there is nothing to do, they will always find an errand for you. Some will want to use their presence to create an atmosphere of guilt and fear within the work of environment. These are the situations that I term as the ‘heat’ of the low altitude. No wonder volcanoes emanate from the earth’s crust.

The moment you go up one level, the heat goes down, you take another upscale step, the heat goes down. A few steps up may be at a supervisory level, the heat drastically reduces. Every step you take towards the top, the tension, anxiety and stress goes down. One day if you are smart enough and find yourself as the C.E.O of your company or an organization. You’ll hit the ozone. .