A friend to entropy and an anarchist at heart
by John MacBeath Watkins
S. was a tall woman, in her private life a sort of den mother for anarchists with whom she shared a house. Some time after she started working for me, she began dating a cousin of mine who I'd never previously met, and eventually she married him.
So, I suppose whatever forces shape our fate must have Intended that she be part of my cohort. I thought of her recently, when I asked my business partner where something was.
"Why do men always ask women where things are?" she replied.
That was an easy one.
"Because you move them."
She had, in fact, tidied away the object in question, and knew exactly where it was in precisely the way I did not. And that is one of the many great things about Jamie. She generally knows where she puts things.
Not so with S. And this was a problem, because of the way I tend to organize things.
If I want to be able to find something, I do the obvious thing: I leave it out in plain sight. This tends to lead to a bit of clutter, with the most often-used items on top.
S. wanted a neat work environment. To her, this meant less clutter. The way she achieved less clutter was in the obvious way: She put things out of view. Unfortunately, once things were out of view, she seemed to think the problem was solved, and actually finding the object next time it was needed was not a high priority for her unless it was something she used.
I came to view this in terms of entropy. Entropy isn't just a good idea, it's the law, and it clearly states that the universe is going from a higher state of organization to a lower state of organization.
My system of organization acknowledges this. My environment is in a state of apparently increasing disorder, and yet, for the most part, I can find things. The system S. used involved the expenditure of energy, which is entropy itself, to bring the environment to a state of greater disorder, in which information about where things were was destroyed, which is entropy again.
Now, it is possible for a system of putting things out of sight to preserve this information, even for it to preserve information better than my somewhat sedimentary system of piles. You would, for example, put stuff under "S" for "stuff," and other stuff under "O" for "other stuff."
This was not the method S. employed. Her method was to expend energy to destroy information, and I cannot help but think that on some level, she did so as a friend to entropy, an anarchist at heart.
S. was a tall woman, in her private life a sort of den mother for anarchists with whom she shared a house. Some time after she started working for me, she began dating a cousin of mine who I'd never previously met, and eventually she married him.
So, I suppose whatever forces shape our fate must have Intended that she be part of my cohort. I thought of her recently, when I asked my business partner where something was.
"Why do men always ask women where things are?" she replied.
That was an easy one.
"Because you move them."
She had, in fact, tidied away the object in question, and knew exactly where it was in precisely the way I did not. And that is one of the many great things about Jamie. She generally knows where she puts things.
Not so with S. And this was a problem, because of the way I tend to organize things.
If I want to be able to find something, I do the obvious thing: I leave it out in plain sight. This tends to lead to a bit of clutter, with the most often-used items on top.
S. wanted a neat work environment. To her, this meant less clutter. The way she achieved less clutter was in the obvious way: She put things out of view. Unfortunately, once things were out of view, she seemed to think the problem was solved, and actually finding the object next time it was needed was not a high priority for her unless it was something she used.
I came to view this in terms of entropy. Entropy isn't just a good idea, it's the law, and it clearly states that the universe is going from a higher state of organization to a lower state of organization.
My system of organization acknowledges this. My environment is in a state of apparently increasing disorder, and yet, for the most part, I can find things. The system S. used involved the expenditure of energy, which is entropy itself, to bring the environment to a state of greater disorder, in which information about where things were was destroyed, which is entropy again.
Now, it is possible for a system of putting things out of sight to preserve this information, even for it to preserve information better than my somewhat sedimentary system of piles. You would, for example, put stuff under "S" for "stuff," and other stuff under "O" for "other stuff."
This was not the method S. employed. Her method was to expend energy to destroy information, and I cannot help but think that on some level, she did so as a friend to entropy, an anarchist at heart.
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