I just realised the other day that I don't understand gravity.
In high school and my undergrad mechanical engineering physics courses, gravity was treated as a force in those force diagrams, acting on the center of mass of each object. But, gravity is not exactly a force, right? A force's impact on your movement depends on your inertia, but gravitational acceleration is independent of mass. In those physics classes, gravitational force actually scaled positively with the mass it was applied on. Doesn't that sound completely backwards when you think about it? I also get the sense that all forces you might "feel" from gravity are just from reactionary forces, or come about because perfect "rigid bodies" aren't a reality.
Supposedly gravity is what happens when mass curves spacetime or something, and it's almost like it curves what would normally be straight trajectory without gravity. But then, if you jump up from the ground of the Earth perpendicular to the surface, you accelerate, or "fall" straight back down. Was that jump actually a heavily curved trajectory that got curved due to gravity or something like that?
I wonder if it's a scientific right of passage to realise you don't really understand gravity. Can anyone here chime in to clarify any misconceptions I have or something?