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November 2009 
About that entropy thing
Posted on Nov 17th, 2008
by 
tinkonthebrink
tinkonthebrink
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for November 17, 2008:
I'm passionate about the second law of thermodynamics.
My universe only falls apart, it refuses to fall together, no matter how diligently I leave it alone and try to wait it out. My clothes lying in a jumbled pile absolutely never fold themselves, the dust never becomes undusted, the weeds never are taken over by herbs and ferns and roses. Maybe if I tried to grow weeds, the herbs and ferns and roses would encroach just out of perversity? I'm not sure about that.
Hundreds of monkeys randomly typing on keyboards is just your average call center and not Shakespeare at all. I know from personal experience. There is no genius to randomness. The tendency toward entropy is overwhelming. There are days I want to give up and let it have its way, leave the mud on the floors and the dirt on my clothes and call it a day. There are days I can't fight it off because it's raining and the dogs keep tracking the dirt in over and over again or I know I'm going hiking and I'll be a mess in an hour anyway, but basically the meaning of my life is an effort to stand up in the face of entropy and disorder and some days I'm more successful than others and that's just how it goes. I wonder if I wouldn't be better off just deciding to love dirt floors or clothes made out of dust and animal hair, or deciding that the way my hair resembles a topiary first thing in the morning is a statement of style? But there is some human resistance in me, this compulsion to look nice, be nice, be orderly in the face of overwhelming obstacles like laws of physics.
So today I am defying entropy again, washing and combing my hair, playing with makeup, wearing clean clothes. And later I will wash clothes and dishes and sweep floors and sidewalks, and I don't know if I'm coming out ahead or if it's even a good idea. But for me the essence of being human is this defiance. One minute at a time I keep the life around me from falling apart. It might be the myth of Sisyphus but it's my own little pet myth and I'm attached to it.
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“But for me the essence of being human is this defiance. One minute at a time I keep the life around me from falling apart. It might be the myth of Sisyphus but it's my own little pet myth and I'm attached to it.”
Reading this today on a day like today is one of the reasons why I come back time and time again.
Oh Bridgey-bridge, it's always a day like today, isn't it?
But I was so worried that the references to the second law of thermodynamics and the myth of sisyphus all in one fell swoop would be off-putting - I'm so glad to know that there is someone who persists through all that stuff. And now I'm going to go clean dishes…
It's nice to see that someone else's mind makes those swooping changes, too! I think I drove my teachers and professors to distraction with the connections I could make. And, yes, I too, have days where I just want to give up on trying to actually get out of the house with clean clothes on. They were just clean, too, when I took them out of the drier, put them on and immediately spilled coffee, was greeted by the neighbor's dog, had to run down to the river to a wreck and so on. Luckily, the Third Law says that the energy goes somewhere, so don't dismay!
My mind does tend to wander and I like to let it go off leash from time to time. Sometimes it brings back treasures, sometimes it just goes off to roll in squirrel musk out in the underbrush, but then one person's treasure is another person's…squirrel musk? Something like that.
Oh great blog. I have been thinking about entropy ever since reading this yesterday. And….I'm still thinking.
Tink, I think Natalie Goldberg would describe your mind as Big Mind (or wild mind). I love that physics and mythology hold equal weight and value and explaining-the-everyday powers in your mind. I'm with BB. It's why I keep coming back : )