The Fall of the House of Bell-Usher

Simplified, the first two laws of thermodynamics are 1) you can’t win and 2) you can’t break even. Said Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time, “The increase of disorder or entropy is what distinguishes the past from the future, giving a direction to time.” Though he was not the first to notice the effect, Rudolf Clausius (1822–1888) is credited with formalizing the concept of entropy (ΔS=∫[dq/T]) in the 1850s. In a closed system spontaneous change is always in the direction of a reduction of energy available for useful work. This is another way of saying net disorder always increases overall; an increase of order in some corner of the system is always bought with a greater decrease in the system as a whole. Things decay. We decay. We can fight decay selectively, but we use up limited resources in the process. Our ability to combat decay decays. Entropy wins in the end.

 
This doesn’t happen right away. We have our glory days when we exploit our surroundings effectively to make our particular corner of the system splendid and strong. As Roderick Usher sings in allusion to his family home in Poe’s story,
 
“Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow
(This—all this—was in the olden
Time long ago)...”
 
But of course the good times don’t last forever for either his estate or his family. (He and his twin sister Madeline are the last of the family lineage.) So,
 
“And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed...”
 
Like Roderick, I (also the last of a lineage) feel somehow connected almost physically to my home (built decades ago by my dad in sunnier times), and both of us are falling apart. The roof leaks, my teeth rot. The plumbing has problems, so does mine. The house visibly ages, so do I. Its furnaces cough, so do my lungs. Its minor systems (e.g. garage door openers) wear out, my physical abilities wane. Carpets fray, hair thins. The house more easily suffers damage from use, my stamina is much diminished. Both of us have become very expensive to maintain even in far less than ideal condition.

Back when order was still increasing on what is now my plot of land. The
house was not yet built, I had a Donny Osmund haircut, and area codes were 
unnecessary on local calls.

 
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not giving up on either of us quite yet. I’ll continue to invest time, energy, and money to keep us both functional, but in both our cases some realism is in order about what effects of entropy are reversible and what are not. Unlike a human being, a house in principle can be rebuilt totally of course, but that usually is not a pragmatic course of action for owners with limited funds – it is not a pragmatic course of action for me. Still, I’ll not yet let either the house or me just split in two and sink into the tarn.
 
Nonetheless, I’m acutely aware that neither of my parents lived past 74. Entropy caught up with them. My intention is to exceed that benchmark (not a very high bar nowadays), but entropy might play the prankster with me by then, too. One never knows.
 
I don’t hold a grudge, though of course I miss being 18, at least in terms of youthful vigor. (It and youthful foolishness were a package deal.) Entropy is a condition of existence. Without it there could be no life at all. Better some than none. So on balance I’d call it a positive. Meanwhile, there even may remain time to float yet another yellow, glorious, golden banner or two on the roof. I’ll get on that.
 

Kelly Osborne – Entropy