Sciences Participating with Arts & Culture in Education

Unscheduled Entropy

Illustrated by Sabrina Ceccherini

I notice entropy in rigidity, in anything that lacks flexibility, be it in our schedules, our goals, or our beliefs.

Whenever we forget how little actually depends on us, then life, God, or however you imagine forces beyond our grasp tend to remind us of the futility of our desire, our need, to have complete control over our brief time on this world.

It does not always happen all at once. Entropy generally starts intruding in our lives slowly, little by little, until our only remaining option is to make it part of our routine, to leave behind any preconceived ideas and open ourselves to whatever might be thrown our way.

A good example that might be relatable to a great number of my peers would be our mindset during the first few weeks of class. “I will do all of my homework.” “I will study every day.” “I will never skip a class or be late to school.” “I will have the best R-Score of my class.” The list goes on, and while these all are noble objectives, they are seldom accomplished because of the almost inhumane rigor it would require of you, given the unpredictability of life in general. Simple things like getting stuck in traffic, or getting left behind by your bus because it got to the stop too early, or having a bad day and performing badly on a test, start stacking up eventually and, in front of a record that gets tarnished further by the day, you may start losing faith in these lofty ideals, and along with it your motivation, and return to your initial more care-free mentality.

I am not saying that we should not strive towards a better self, that we should stop trying to improve as a person. It is more along the lines that if you set impossible standards for yourself, you are going to end up dropping the idea of getting better altogether.

Instead, working on a day-to-day basis and keeping in mind that, even though we may often feel like it, we are not Superman, helps us staying grounded in our expectations for ourselves.

Life is instability, life is randomness, life is chaos, life is beyond our control, our hands are not big enough to grasp it, and entropy is always there to remind us of that if we ever forget it.