Entropy. That's the enemy. We spend our lives fighting it and, ultimately, we all lose.
Last night, Larry invited his sister to go to the movies with us. Mary's a nurse and she's had a bad week. She cautioned Kate, "Don't ever go to nursing school." There was never any danger of that. I thought, though, about the high burn out of nurses. Their work is physically and emotionally exhausting, God bless them, and they never win. They're constantly fighting an enemy -- disease and injury and death -- that never gives up. Their lives are an endless parade of scared and complaining people in need. No wonder they burn out. It's like swimming against a tsunami. No ... it's not like a tsunami ... more like a relentless tide. Sometimes you think you're making progress and doing well, and then the force of the ocean overtakes you.
I spent yesterday fighting entropy too. I made a pretty good dent in cleaning out the garage. It's not saving a life, but it's still a small part of the good fight. Making order out of chaos. Opposing the natural inclination of things to fall into decay.
As I was writing this, the sun came up. A new day. I know I can't beat the enemy. So, maybe that's not the goal. Maybe the goal should be to make things as good as they can be for as long as possible. Which means continuing to clean out the garage today and fixing Genny's hutch to she can't get out and run wild in the rain like she did last week.
There's a cardinal and a titmouse on my bird feeder. Ephemeral things, birds. They look sleek and healthy though and I'm contributing to that by setting out food for them. I'm helping them fight the entropy another day.
I wonder what makes us keep going. How do we have the courage and hope and energy to hold back the chaos? Like a dike around Holland, we push back the waters. We mend the dike here and it springs a leak there. While I cleaned out the garage yesterday, the dishes piled up in the kitchen and Kate and Jeff left stuff all over the family room. If you're lucky, you can only hope to make marginal progress over the entropy. But I'm not ready to throw up my hands and give up. In fact, I'm sort of encouraged by the realization that I can't be expected to win. I only have to do what I can do. That's giving it a good try, for myself and the people I love.
Now that it's light, I can see that I left the lid off the rabbit food last night. The feeder birds are curious about the rabbit food and occasionally perch on the edge of the plastic container, but no one has tried to eat it. I'll probably have to throw out at least part of it. Chaos wins a small victory. But I have the lid and more rabbit food and the will to fight.
Last night, Larry invited his sister to go to the movies with us. Mary's a nurse and she's had a bad week. She cautioned Kate, "Don't ever go to nursing school." There was never any danger of that. I thought, though, about the high burn out of nurses. Their work is physically and emotionally exhausting, God bless them, and they never win. They're constantly fighting an enemy -- disease and injury and death -- that never gives up. Their lives are an endless parade of scared and complaining people in need. No wonder they burn out. It's like swimming against a tsunami. No ... it's not like a tsunami ... more like a relentless tide. Sometimes you think you're making progress and doing well, and then the force of the ocean overtakes you.
I spent yesterday fighting entropy too. I made a pretty good dent in cleaning out the garage. It's not saving a life, but it's still a small part of the good fight. Making order out of chaos. Opposing the natural inclination of things to fall into decay.
As I was writing this, the sun came up. A new day. I know I can't beat the enemy. So, maybe that's not the goal. Maybe the goal should be to make things as good as they can be for as long as possible. Which means continuing to clean out the garage today and fixing Genny's hutch to she can't get out and run wild in the rain like she did last week.
There's a cardinal and a titmouse on my bird feeder. Ephemeral things, birds. They look sleek and healthy though and I'm contributing to that by setting out food for them. I'm helping them fight the entropy another day.
I wonder what makes us keep going. How do we have the courage and hope and energy to hold back the chaos? Like a dike around Holland, we push back the waters. We mend the dike here and it springs a leak there. While I cleaned out the garage yesterday, the dishes piled up in the kitchen and Kate and Jeff left stuff all over the family room. If you're lucky, you can only hope to make marginal progress over the entropy. But I'm not ready to throw up my hands and give up. In fact, I'm sort of encouraged by the realization that I can't be expected to win. I only have to do what I can do. That's giving it a good try, for myself and the people I love.
Now that it's light, I can see that I left the lid off the rabbit food last night. The feeder birds are curious about the rabbit food and occasionally perch on the edge of the plastic container, but no one has tried to eat it. I'll probably have to throw out at least part of it. Chaos wins a small victory. But I have the lid and more rabbit food and the will to fight.
2 comments:
LOL - love this post! Its a deeper variation on the theme: "why wash the dishes, they just get dirty again".
But I think you were fighting against Newton's Laws of Motion with the living room and the garage.
"To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction".
Drop everything and go outside in this beautiful day! (not that I'm going to - I have to dump rabbit trays, make several phonecalls, and spin more angora yarn for the farmers market next week)
I love your thought process. I spent the day working on my fiber room. I did nothing else but I feel good that it's clean and I have room to work and know where everything is again. Somerhill said that it's Newton's laws of motion, i think sometimes it's just murphy's law he's such a trickster.
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