When your shoelace snaps, that’s entropy, a tiny fragment of universal decay that drips onto your back from an obscure and lingering extra-dimensional cloud. If you are prepared for this kind of sporadic unraveling, you go find your extra shoelaces in the top drawer of your dresser, whistle a happy tune, re-lace your shoe and away you go. The entropy has drained away, for now anyway, and you can continue living in merry denial of the second law of thermodynamics.
But sometimes, either through lack of planning, laziness, or both (mea culpa), these desultory drip-drops can turn into a regular downpour of fraying entropy. This week my watchband broke, then my computer started to fail, then my web host account stopped working, and then the rattle in my car (just off warranty) turned out to require $1200 worth of repair thereby failing its overdue inspection.
I don’t mention these things to claim that my troubles are severe, but you do get the feeling, when you get caught in an entropy storm, that something is going terribly wrong, and it’s going wronger faster than you can fix it. It’s as if there’s an accelerating feedback loop. The entropy drainpipes are clogged and you can see it pooling up around you like a dark corrosive tide. At times like this, you just have to concentrate on one thing at a time. The zen of Getting Things Done can rescue you by insisting that you pick one thing and fix it. I was amazed how much better I felt just dropping off my watch at the watch repair store. That cleared the drain enough for me to change web hosts and make an appointment for my suffering car. Tomorrow I re-install Windows to clean the gremlins off this machine… wish me luck! The cloud has backed off momentarily, and I can pretend it doesn’t exist again. In my memories it never does. And where does all that entropy drain to anyway? Best not to think about it.
Which reminds me: What did Mr. Death say after he stopped by for a drink?
“See you later!”
Rambles Blog at Star Chamber 