I've been periodically peeved ever since I learned about entropy. My understanding is rudimentary, and I’m probably just a whiner, but it still strikes me as unfair that things fall apart. Why does everything break down? Why, by default, does the passing of time bring more disorder and chaos?
Life is an unremitting, Sisyphean struggle. No task is finished for good. We wash and clean and repair on an endless loop. We fill our stomachs and, scant hours later, feel them gnaw again. We are sandcastle people building sandcastle lives, always within the long reach of the tide. Egypt, Rome, Macedonia, the Habsburgs; no empire has ever remained. In the end, decay, dust, rust and rot reign.
Why bother striving and building when nothing will last? You and me and everyone we love will die. The sun itself will burn out.
And yet.
There is nobility in the face of futility. There are battles worth fighting even though we’re sure to lose them.
We may think we have no choice, but of…
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