VOL.07—Toward Disorder
Lessons on entropy from a distant universe
Happy belated Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones, friends. I’m happy to be back after a few months and hope you’re well. I write to you from the city of brotherly love. Philly’s Christmas Village just opened across the street, its lights shining well past sunset.
Spoilers ahead for ‘Exhalation’, a short story by Ted Chiang. Thanks, K for the book recommendation.
23.28
Happy December architects,
In a distant universe, mechanical aliens notice that clocks across their world appear to be running fast. These beings live by breathing in subterranean argon (pressurized air) through interchangeable lungs, but little else is known about their anatomy.
Faced with the puzzling clock incident, a mechanical scientist performs an auto-dissection to test a bleak hypothesis. While observing their own brain’s mechanical conduits and subassemblies, the scientist learns that their brain, like their lungs, also depends on the flow of pressurized air. The scientist deduces that it is not the clocks that are all running fast, but the argon flowing through their minds that is running slow. The mechanical race had begun to deplete their subterranean argon supply. “It will be the end of pressure, the end of motive power, the end of thought. The universe will have reached perfect equilibrium”, the scientist writes.
Life is a fight against entropy. This is the idea from the title story of Ted Chiang’s Exhalations that has been on my mind lately.
Since August, I’ve been putting an obsessive amount of attention toward journaling. I write about things I’m grateful for, moments, habits, and other scattered thoughts. I use physical and digital mediums, slowly accumulating stickie notes, index cards, and Notion pages until they create more clutter than they originally meant to organize. Getting started was hard, but not atypical for me. I’ve always been selectively organized about these types of hobbies; they help tether my stubborn side.
But, in this exacerbated-pandemic limbo, I realized my journaling habit is not just a symptom of my stubbornness but also my need for order. The average daily new cases in Philadelphia is up 700% from a few months ago. Our hyperawareness from March has turned into fatigue. My mother and sister, as healthcare workers, witness the fatigue firsthand, not just in the patients, but in their colleagues. I worry about them especially within this purgatory of anxiety.
So, I turn to more straightforward parts of my life—a filled journal page, tidy bed, and clean dishes—for predictability. But, entropy lives here too. It’s silly to think about how much energy we use each day simply to keep something as it is. The pages, bed, and dishes can become empty, untidy, and dirty again in seconds. Staying in shape, growing knowledge, and building relationships all require consistent energy and more of it than it takes to lose them. We are amorphous blobs maintaining perpetually, shaped by our battles and choices.
I am both disheartened and lifted by this idea. It feels natural to preoccupy ourselves with the elements we can control. But, entropy doesn’t discriminate on prudence, so I wonder if it’s better to accept entropy rather than fight it head-on. If I can understand how the destructive and beautiful sides of nature are sometimes one and the same—how autumn is both decay and simultaneously per Albert Camus, a second spring where every leaf is a flower—perhaps disorder is not so foreign. The promise that nothing stays as we leave it is itself, a form of optimism.
Back in the mechanical world, a portion of the mechanical society called Reversalists tries to build artificial air pressurizers to replenish the depleted argon. The scientist does not share their optimism, understanding that the machines require more argon to operate than they can produce. Yet, I can’t help but sympathize with the Reversalists. I imagine the Reversalists, like myself, have misunderstood agency sometime in their past. Wired to optimize for output, they cling to the notion that if they work smart and efficiently enough, that they can overcome anything, even time. But, agency doesn’t work this way. While the Reversalists try to manipulate their obstacle to themselves, the scientist chooses acceptance. In a closing message to whoever discovers their journal, the scientist writes not with despair, but deference:
Your lives will end just as ours did, just as everyone’s must. No matter how long it takes, eventually equilibrium will be reached. I hope you are not saddened by that awareness. I hope that your expedition was more than a search for other universes to use as reservoirs. I hope that you were motivated by a desire for knowledge, a yearning to see what can arise from a universe’s exhalation. Because even if a universe’s life span is calculable, the variety of life that is generated within it is not…Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so. I feel I have the right to tell you this because, as I am inscribing these words, I am doing the same.
Accepting entropy requires a tolerance for uncertainty. When days grow tenuous, dig for your resilience, but remain self-compassionate if you’re unable to find it. Lean on the simpler things. Whether that is a made bed, a filled journal, or the coziness and unconditional love of a companion, touchstones of familiarity can keep us abreast. Disorder may be inevitable, but the lives we lead never were so keep showing up for what you love. Create art and music; share laughs recklessly. Lean toward the tide of disorder, and when it inevitably crashes over, choose to create and laugh again.
Exhale,
Brandon
on Wabi-Sabi
In arts & culture, wabi-sabi is a Japanese aesthetic that appreciates the imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete in nature. I see it in light leaks on my film prints and the architecture inspired by nature ironically destined to be reclaimed by it. It’s in the double-yolk egg I cracked onto the skillet for breakfast the other day and the hodgepodge meal made from Thanksgiving leftovers. I even think about this view in social media trends—how Tiktok tries to champion rawness while Instagram has historically been dominated by curation. With the modern world’s relentless obsession with perfection, wabi-sabi is a refreshing world view.
on the Status Quo Ante
Beware of a Return to the Status Quo Ante
I was with my sister and her in-laws in New Jersey on the slow Saturday morning. The skies were clear, and the air smelled like fresh suburban dew. Then, after a late breakfast, the Associated Press called Pennsylvania.
But, the results at the ballot box only begin to scratch the surface of the challenge. Nathan Gardels, editor-in-chief at Noema Magazine and co-founder of the Berggreun Institute for political and social transformations, writes about the uncertainties still to come. His unease touches the rise of populism attributed to social media, the eastward shift in geopolitical gravity, and the idea that a return to a pre-Trump “status quo” will do more than band-aid the issues that led to his administration in the first place.
Some things are looking up, though. Vaccines are on the horizon, and as I write this, I am listening to the President-elect’s Thanksgiving address. He speaks to our fatigue and his own personal losses this holiday season in a sobering, empathetic speech.
🎮 Myth & Mayhem
In early October, my brother-in-law introduced me to Hades, an indie video game where you play as Zagreus, the son of Hades, attempting to escape your father’s underworld. At this point, I hadn’t owned any video games for five years. Given my addictive personality, it was probably better off that way. But, I broke that spell and after many hours of play, I must say Hades is genius.
Hades turns a traditionally repetitive feedback loop into an engaging narrative. The character dialogue is witty and dynamic—if I upgrade a certain weapon, the God I meet next will comment specifically on it; if I died to a certain boss, they will trash-talk me in our next encounter. Each escape attempt is uniquely challenging and satisfying. The soundtrack, art, and character design are also spectacular. Led by a single artistic director, JenZee, the style brings the game’s myth and mayhem to life.
Like books and films, video games can create immersive worlds ripe for escapism, global communities for cultivation, and extensions of the human imagination for discovery. I’m not addicted to Hades only because it is a well-balanced and aesthetically pleasing game, but also a prime example of creative narrative design.
📷 35mm for Dummies
Back in September, I picked up a 35mm Minolta SLR (my first film camera)! Shooting on film quickly forced me to learn things about processing, light, and focus that I’ve taken for granted. It favors patience over immediacy and intention over volume. What you gain in control over the dials, you lose in immediate feedback. How did the photo turn out? Was it in focus? What is properly exposed? I didn’t have the answers to these questions I used to ask anymore, but soon enough I stopped asking.
I’m still new to this, but it’s been fun. So, here are a few of my film blunders to remind me how much I still have to learn:
🎶 Renaissance Boy
Galimatias, best known for his production on Urban Flora, a 2015 collaborative EP with Alina Baraz, released his debut album, Renaissance Boy back in August. With surreal visuals to match, the album is a sub-aquatic trip. Thanks, W for sharing it with me. I think our messages contain more song links than texts at this point.
The Danish-born artist shows his signature blossoming synths, vocaloids, and reverb (a lot of reverb). I appreciate the continuity of the seamless transitions in-between tracks and go back to the album whenever I’m looking for something mellow. If you have forty minutes to go swimming, consider playing Renaissance Boy through from start to finish. If not, some of my favorite tracks are Let Go, GPS, and Room 332.
p.s.
*watches The Queen’s Gambit once* “The Sicilian Defense? Oh, yeah I love the Sicilian, bro.” I finally beat Beth Harmon (age 9) the other day.
Spotify Wrapped 2020 is coming soon! May the odds be ever in your favor.
Here’s a mesmerizing 24-hour plant-lapse.
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