donny.nyc - mostly kidding

Entropy

  I had a thought, that I can better understand the concept as the way things around me tend to turn into garbage. Sometimes with my involvement. But otherwise emerging unassisted, with all the inevitability befitting such thermodynamic certainties. Indifferent to my interventions, the collected evidence of my existence shall, sooner or later, gradually or abruptly, get recycled, composted, or trashed, if it doesn't just plain rot.

  Years ago, feeling like garbage myself, I decided to quit my job, give up my apartment, and leave town. To the people around me, the idea smelled a little off. Where was I going? What was my plan? What would I do with all my stuff? Sell it? Put it into storage? Fair questions, and I had no idea. But wanting to look minimally prepared, I had packed a bag, filling it with clothes, and a little food. I dediced to take some mementos as well, reminders of the life I was leaving behind. It seemed reasonable at at the time, since I was abandoning the bulk of my accumulated crap. My once prized posessions now reduced to someone else's problem. But even this cold, inedible clutter I had insisted on bringing along seemed destined for the dump. Or worse. With my pack (literally) weighing on me, my perception shifted, and within a couple of days the trinkets I had been attached to, appeared much less precious. Certainly nothing worth breaking my body for. So no surprise that I tossed most of it unceremoniously in a heap. A twisted cairn that revealed just how lost I was, rather than pointing the way.

  There were the deliberate waste piles I left scattered around while off 'discovering myself.' Then there's the decay that grows and spreads over the unattended, neglected pieces of my life. I started roasting coffee several years ago. It started as a way for me to keep up the habit during lockdown. But I've kept it up as a hobby since the world re-opened (or we stopped caring.) At a minimum, it's an activity I try to keep up at least once a week. Yet there are times when work or family needs more of my attention and I get pulled away. That's when the little hairs start to grow, and I need to shave them off before I can dive back in. And this tension naturally pulls both ways. Relationships turning rancid when we're pulled away by work. Or if we're spending too much time escaping into hobbies. The spinning plates cliché fits, but we can make it more exciting. Sure, you have to race around to keep them upright, but while you're running around resisting the crash, you're also busy trimming the mold off.

  There's a kind of irony floating on the surface of all this. Or if you're feeling a little bleak, call it futility. Or tell me I'm just being cynical. The price of preserving ourselves (or anything), maintaining an order, is to displace the disorder and disrepair, directing it elsewhere. Feeding it a piece of ourselves in the process, and helping it compound and grow (with interest.)