so, when i was a kid, there was this book...and it was either Madeline L'Engle's "wrinkle in time" or the trilogy of awesome time-traveling dolphin-riding kid-witches books by Diane Duane...that had a character or concept in it called "Entropy". this was my first experience with the word, and the idea of this evil Sauron-type darkness that wanted to destroy everything in the universe made quite an impression.
EDIT: found the book on wiki...here you go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Wizards#The_Powers_That_Be
needless to say, by the time i spent some time studying quantum physics and theoretical mathematics in college, my idea of entropy had changed a bit, but i was still also intrigued with my original idea as well.
ultimately, it's a pretty realistic portrayal. despite your spiritual beliefs, etc., at least on a material level the universe tends towards nothingness...just like there's no way to build a perpetual motion machine, eventually the energy that created us will run out. and since we don't know how everything started, maybe there's a chance it'll start over again, but this run, such as it is, will eventually be over. it's as true on a personal level as it is on a "universe" level. everybody's going to eventually die, and it's nice to think that at least for awhile the memories of individual people will continue on, but ultimately that's not really how things work.
anyway, i'm getting at something. i'm not trying to be depressing because i don't think it IS depressing. if there wasn't that definite end to demarcate when we'll stop being around, combined with the randomness and the possibility of that end coming today or 70 years from now, i for one would honestly find it difficult to have any reason to get up in the morning. why not put off what you can do today if you can always do it tomorrow?
but without getting too far into my paradox-laden and yet perfectly functional belief system, here's my point for the moment. it seems this week the topic du jour (yeah, that's wrong, but i forget the french for "week"...topic du semaine?) is micromanaging one's life/appearance/health, etc. i've been talking to a few people this particular semaine about this, and i just don't get it. i mean, i'll admit at one point in my life i used to treat my health/body/spirituality/social life/etc. the same way i treat my kitchen, in the sense that when one thing's out of place in the kitchen and i feel like cleaning it up, suddenly everything else that's out of order in the house gets cast into sharp relief and i can't stop cleaning until everything is perfect. so many people seem to treat the more metaphysical aspects of their lives this way, but to me it just seems pointless. i mean, ultimately, the endpoint of our lives (at least on earth, depending on what you believe) is to die and turn into dirt. whoo-hoo! i mean, that's pretty humbling. so i guess i just don't get the point in trying to project this image that you're the perfect person, or that you don't have issues, or that you've managed to defeat entropy, because you haven't. and it's just wasting a lot of your time you could be using to actually enjoy the time you have in your own idiosyncratic ways.
sure, i mean, you could look at a heroin user or something and say "well there's a guy/girl who's not concerned about being perfect and look what it's doing to them". but there are extreme examples of any type of behavior, and that's not what i'm talking about here. i'm talking about people who are afraid to admit the fact that there can be darkness and you can still get up every day and do something that matters even if you don't have that darkness completely under control. because you won't ever have it completely under control, at least not until you die, and then it doesn't really do you any good. :)
one of the great qualities of humanity is the ability to carry on as if death isn't staring you right in the face all the time, but forcefully ignoring death just because you live in a culture that allows you to be affluent enough to pretend it doesn't exist is just stupid. so chill the fuck out and hit the streets for some disco and a burger. peace.
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