Welcome to life
Friend of mine laments that everything in his life is in some state of disrepair, and if he lives to be 200 years old he’ll never get it all fixed.
I have windows in need of repair. Some stuff needs to be done to all four cars AND the motorcycle. I hate to think what the house’s electrical system has in store for me. I told him what I said at Steve’s, some weeks ago, I don’t remember in regard to what.
Life is a rope. You’re Jiminez. Lee Marvin and his grease gun are Entropy. Deal with it. Climb or die.
Then it occurred to me- I’m an entropy warrior. A certain number of us are. Those of us who fix, who maintain, who keep things. A bunch of folks who keep the planet in a coherent form for another day. Roberta is one. Alger. Jimmy. Dick, linkless though he is. Anyone who toils regularly to make sure things are, as they are, a little longer.
A larger number of people create or amplify entropy.
In auto repair or home maintenance, or government or communications, entropy is winning. And it probably always will. Are you an entropy warrier? What do you do to slow the decay?
28 comments Og | Invisible Infrastructure
That is a brilliant way of viewing the world. My world is filled with entropy generators — including some of the two-legged variety — and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Some days I decrease the total local entropy, other days I lose ground. Left to its own devices, entropy will always win; after all, that’s simply the Second Law of Thermodynamics at work.
BTW, I absolutely hated Thermo but my EE program required it. Some irony, there.
Seems like my whole working life was a matter of fixing stuff that had problems, whether it was machines or people.
Cars, homes, buildings, gardens, trees…
Yep. Everything needs fixing to one degree or another; it’s just a matter of keeping priorities straight.
Take care of things in order so things don’t BREAK, but yeah, the list is never-ending. Fix the next big thing, and two little things go on the tail-end of the list. All we can do is keep on keepin’ on, and teach the kids how to keep on keepin’ on as well.
Ahh, one more reply, Og…
You mentioned Entropy Warriors… we don’t just keep things the same, we IMPROVE them.
Or at least roll entropy back, like a new engine on an old tiller, or new heads on a ’97 Blazer… we take BACK from entropy, push it back, or find ways to make things BETTER than when they were new and kick entropy to the curb.
Just my two cents… spend it wisely :)
Nicely put, all.
As was your original, Og. “Entropy Warrior.” I like that.
Maybe we should have blogtags- “footsoldiers in the War on Entropy”
Sing, dance, fly, but mostly, think.
All entropy is local. Engage the stare of a clear night sky and tell me you see entropy. You and I will surely succumb to the decomposition of time, but long before we had the lawn to mow and the garden to weed, life sprang forth unabashed and unbeckoned, in all its rage and glory. And long after we pass life will continue its youthful dance of joy and sorrow. Life is unequivocal proof that entropy is local.
actually I do see entropy in the night sky, because I understand what I’m looking at. but the only entropy we can change is, as you say, local.
Last night, I cleaned a throw-rug’s-worth of entropy out of my dryer’s lint chute.
It runs much cooler, now.
M
you’re supposed to knit that into new jeans, Mark.
In the Thermodynamic Battle of the Universe, I am an Entropy Warrior.
Whenever there are cars to be fixed, a home to be maintained, a pet to be trained, landscape to be manicured, or wayward children to discipline; you will see me and my brethren toiling endlessly to uphold the virtues of Order and the American Way.
One of my greatest challenges as an Entropy Warrior is to maintain an Alfa Romeo as a daily driver.
Sometimes, I think that there is a law of Conservation of Entropy. Any entropy removed from a system is replaced by more entropy. However, it is not a one-to-one relationship. More like for every unit of entropy removed, two or three units of entropy are created.
My wife is one of the greatest Entropy Warriors I know. She can create order from chaos in a wide variety of systems: the house, the yard, the kids, the grandkids, the finances. It’s a good thing that there are only so many hours in a day or else she may not need me.
Entropy testifies to the difference between the potential world and the real world. It would be the height of ingratitude to bewail all entropy since without it I wouldn’t exist.
But as you say, we can do our part. We cannot eliminate all loss, but we can recover some: the turbocharger, the heat pump.
But lest it be shunted aside, let me focus on one of your points.
A larger number of people create or amplify entropy.
Clearly, the extra entropy, imposed by those who know they’re better than you, abrades the most.
Installing stop signs at every corner.
“Child”proof caps.
Obsolete red-tape.
Those are performance obstructions intended to slow (or once did) some incidental consequence.
Then there are financial disincentives on down, usually by government imposing taxes allegedly to cover incidental costs associated with some product, but don’t expect good bookkeeping.
While every tax to some degree is extra entropy, none is more obvious than the “revenue enhancement.”
And then there is the most oxymoronic tax of all, the “value added tax.” You can tell by the name that it is PURE entropy.
However, I wish to remind you that only sometimes do we individually we fight entropy.
Best example is “planned obsolescence.” That’s the scheme where losses have been imposed so that jobs can be created or sustained. E.g.: adding impurities to plastics so that UV makes replacement necessary. That procedure was instituted allegedly to speed up plastic decay, but it really increases landfill piles. And it simultaneously hides how we all conspire to kill The Man in the White Suit.
Entropy is the best arguement against evolution I can come up with. Always fixing shit. And, no, the wife does not help as she can break as much stuff and faster than the kids. With an in home day care, we have a LOT of kids.
Oh well, what else would you do if you didn’t need to fix stuff.
Actually, Og, the new jeans thing wouldn’t work. Fibers’re too short.
Now felting it into a baseball hat might do. I’d have to find my skull cap form, though. It’s in storage.
M
made some nice 100% rag paper out of dryer lint, Mark.
There’s an idea. Bleach it. Use it to print your own money.
M
Speaking of which, last night around dusk, one of those little bastard tree rats found out what a 60 year old Benjamin pellet rifle is capable of doing.
He dropped like a rock when that 22. round caught his ass dead center, spine, shoulder level.
(Insert evil laugh here)
Entropy is the bastard offspring of Inertia.
Oh yeah, almost forgot. Boarded up the house today in prep for Hurricane Ike.
25 swells, monster waves, 125 mph winds.
.
.
.
.
Wait… I’m in Dallas. What the hell am I doing?
Og,
I was just commenting the other day, that I feel like I start the day with a project: fill in a small hole with dirt. At the end of the day, the hole is larger and the dirt to fill it has disappeared.
But on the plus, side, I got my two outside buildings re-roofed, and I’m getting an estimate on remodeling my 60s pink bathroom.
Didn’t know you were a fixer too. Great post!
The Three Laws are easily summed up:
1) You can’t win.
(Energy is always conserved)
2) You can’t break even.
(Entropy always increases)
3) You can’t get out of the game.
(As temperatures approach absolute zero, entropy approaches a minimum)
I’m a social entropy warrior in a desperate rear guard action.
It’s worse than being with Ney on the way out of Russia- the retreating force has dissolved. More like Gandamack.
At home, I pick my battles.
Slash: “I think that there is a law of Conservation of Entropy. Any entropy removed from a system is replaced by more entropy. However, it is not a one-to-one relationship. More like for every unit of entropy removed, two or three units of entropy are created.”
Or, as soon as you get the charge cards paid off, the car breaks again.
Entropy’s a self-fulfilling prophecy…
Thank Jesus you and the entropy warriors you mentioned aren’t pot-calling-the-kettle-black, lipstick-on-a-pig-applying, community activists.
In regards to amplifying entropy, there is something Mark Twain wrote, “as soon as the Seeker finds what he is thoroughly convinced is the Truth, he seeks no further, but gives the rest of his days to hunting junk to patch it and caulk it and prop it with, and make it weather-proof and keep it from caving in on him.”
Twain was all the better pundit because he had plied some substantive trades earlier. His “Life on the Mississippi”, perhaps the first book composed on a typewriter, is a case study in entropy.
Annoying nitpick: Lee Marvin used an M3 grease gun, not a Sten.
Not an annoying nitpick, grease guns are WAY better than stens.
Thank you for your comment on the “Getting in the war” piece, og- I’ve responded there.