collapse

Today we ask that you release your opposition to entropy.

Entropy is the force that pulls systems into increasing states of disorder.

Old age and sickness are entropic forces.

Dust and mold are entropic forces.

Entropy dissolves complex forms, reducing them to simpler states.  The pile of clutter on your desk is entropy.

Humans, in general, dislike entropy, and deeply resent its existence.  People often take entropy as a kind of personal affront.  They feel personally victimized by entropy.  There is a kind of incredulous disbelief that they, too, are subject to forces like old age, sickness, or entropic events like financial collapse or natural disasters.

Entropy is at the root of the human sense that there is something wrong or defective about reality itself.  For any reality that includes entropy must be broken.  “God” must have made a mistake.

Your reality is good.  That means that entropy serves a purpose.  Entropy, too, is good.

In truth, you have chosen to live in a universe that contains entropy.

Entropy, you see, is an engine of creation.  Without entropy, without the breakdown of old forms, nothing new can arise.

Consider compost, which forms as a result of the decay of plant matter.  Compost is a result of entropic processes.  And yet it is well known that compost is an ideal fertilizer.

Stars have a life cycle.  They grow old, and die.  At death, they shed a vast cloud containing heavy elements, without which life as you know it would not exist.  The entropic process that destroys stars seeds life in the universe.

So it would be good to cultivate a healthy relationship with entropy.  Entropy is not going to stop existing just because you don’t like it.  

That does not mean, do not resist entropy.

It is important for humans to resist entropy.  It is good to clean your home and your body.  It is good to create health, structure, and complexity.  

Of course, at a certain point in the lives of all living things, one reaches a place of surrender to entropy.  This happens at physical death.  Physical death is not a tragedy, but really a form of rebirth — which entropy makes possible.

Modern humans in general do not have a healthy relationship with entropy.  Old age and sickness are swept under the carpet.  Humans resent mess, breakdown, disorder.  Even the common cold is despised.  

Sleep is a form of entropy.  When humans sleep, they enter a simpler, more disorganized state of being.  Many modern humans resent that they have to sleep at all, because sleep is considered an “unproductive” time.  No wonder so many people have insomnia!  It is quite crazy, the extent to which modern humans despise entropic energies.    

If you could learn to accept entropy — to simply give it permission to exist — you would experience life with a deep sense of peace, and equanimity.

Without the resentment of entropy, it would be far easier for you to resist it in a healthy way.  How much easier is it to clean, for example, when you do not resent the task?  

It is healthy also, to accept the reality of flaws, mess, and failure.  The Navajo rug weavers always included a flaw in their rugs, to honor and acknowledge entropy.  If you honor and acknowledge entropy — flaws, mess, “failure” — it will have far less power over your life.  

Accept that in the end, all creation is subject to entropy.  You will die, sooner or later.  There is no stopping it.  This does not mean you live in a cruel, broken universe.  It does not mean you are a victim.  Just the opposite, in fact.

If you can perceive entropy as part of the perfection of reality, then your eyes are truly open indeed.