Welcome to our weekly A & J PEI Treasures/E Jean Simpson Author blog post/podcast. I’m E Jean Simpson the Indie Author portion and your host. Today I will talk about Entropy and how it may be the Enemy of the Arts and Lifestyle. Anton Chekhov was quoted as saying, “Only entropy comes easy.” If you want to find out more, continue reading/listening.
The quote, in the beginning, makes it look like just an easy fact…letting things go is easier. As a child, in science, I learned entropy is the process by which things break down naturally at least for the short version. The longer version includes thermodynamics. We don’t need to go there for the purpose of this post. I’ll also stick with a straight forward example, no energy being put into upkeep of a house and the house falls apart or at least into disrepair. It seems to be logical. To further this expression, I notice that when one stops working on their art form, things disintegrate. It is important to spend time on artist endeavours or whatever hobby or skill you want to develop. If you do not, then the skill falls into disuse. It’s not like a little work wouldn’t help you to brush up on your skills but it will take extra work. Notice that you have to work on it more once it falls into disuse…it isn’t lost, unless you leave it go too long.
When one understands this concept, you can see where lack of work on something can cause it to fall into disrepair or disuse. This is why it is useful to do something associated with your artistic endeavours or your life interests. When we sit around and do not create in any way, things can disintegrate quickly as we fall into arguments, or create issues. I’ve worked in places where there was a forced stop to the workload. Some tried to do what they could…but in the end, until things were up and running, there was little that could be done. What happened from there was that people fell into gossip, bickering and it created a strange atmosphere. I’ve found many of the more busy locations to be far happier as far as work was concerned. I was always happier to be at least moderately busy and have many interests. It gives some structure to my days and some goals to work on.
So, where does entropy come in? Many people take a break. That is fine. Everyone needs breaks. However, when the break lasts and lasts and stuff isn’t happening that is when problems develop and the situation can disintegrate. If you are an artist of any sort, then practicing your art is imperative. For example, I find the blog post/podcast combination to be a good way to continue to practice with my writing and to maybe work on saying something that I think is worthwhile or hopefully interesting to pass along. It doesn’t always have to be long. In fact, most of my work is between 5-7 minutes for podcasts. In this age of instant gratification, it seems snippets work better than large volume works.
It’s also important to know that it could take me hours or it could take less time to construct one to podcast. What it does is it forces me to come up with a topic, do a write up, make it a podcast. It keeps me actively writing, thinking and makes me structure at least some of my time. I also work on e-books and on our other sites. My other sites keep me working on photographic endeavours. I also have other hobbies. These add structure and allows me to work out things in a way that works for me. I don’t suggest everyone do the same things. It depends on your particular interests and things you enjoy doing.
Generally, for many of those with creative temperaments, it is entropy that causes us to become depressed. We work at our art to keep some order to the chaos. It is the need to make order out of chaos that keeps many artists in the forefront of their field. This also is a way to keep ourselves productive in times when most are having a great deal of difficulty finding balance.
Entropy might be a natural state, but generally humans tend to need to make sense of the world around them. They need some kind of order in the chaos. It is the same for almost everyone. Artists of all sorts find that they can make sense of their world by working on perfecting their art. People organize their world. It is a part of human nature. When things fall apart or into entropy, they struggle to rebuild. So, though entropy is easy and it is natural…it’s been human destiny to attempt to structure their world. So, in effect, we fight entropy.
As Jason Silva pointed out,: “Death is not necessarily what gives meaning to life LIFE gives meaning to life, and what we do with life, which is to create knowledge like music, art, science. To this end, I believe intelligent life might be evolution’s secret weapon: the ultimate hack that might help us transcend entropy.”
So, be realistically unrealistic and understand that entropy has its place in the universe; however human endeavours have seemingly always tried to create structure and meaning in their life. We do this in various ways. It shows up in how we structure our lives and in the way we work on our art. We find ways to create and to structure our world around us. Therefore, entropy seems to be the great enemy of art and lifestyle. Though without it, we would not know beauty as we’d have nothing to compare it to. The world still continues to revolve with this strange dichotomy of bedfellows. We are a bit of both I think. This is just the beginning of a slow dance to attain balance.
Thank you for reading our blog post or listening to our podcast and your interest in A & J PEI Treasures!
“In Memory of Wayne Palmer 1947-2021”
You can find our podcasts on: https://anchor.fm/a–j-pei-treasures
A & J PEI Treasures/E Jean Simpson, BEd, BA, MA 