Entropy (A Rough Thought)

It is the eve of the new year, and I feel like I am standing on the precipice of a cliff on standing on one leg balancing plates in both hands held out at my sides.  It is a deep chasm, a steep fall, with rocky walls, and floor with jagged stone to mash me from my sudden stop from descent. 

New years are about rebirth, about transforming into a better person, day by day, week by week, month by month, until at the end of the year, you are a better person then you were last year.  It is about renewal and cleansing, a shedding of the old, dry dead skin of the old year, no longer useful, but raw, rough, irritating.

This is a process I have undergone myself many times, with my weight, with my work, with the clutter in my house.

In 2013, I determined to lose about ninety pounds.  To meet that goal, I exercised everyday.  I set my alarm for early the next morning.  I deprived myself of the food I was wont to eating, substituting healthier, more nutritious foods, salads, soups, fruits.  I eliminated my staple drink, Dr. Pepper’s, drinking instead water. 

I participated in National Novel Writing Month, determined not only to write fifty thousand words which told a singular story, but to finish that story, to get to its end, to write the last word of the story.  I wrote a seventy five thousand word novel and finished the last word.

In 2013, I accomplished much.  In 2014, I pledged myself to maintain those standards I set for myself.  Maintain a weight of about one hundred forty pounds and to write another full novel during National Novel Writing Month.  I made promises to myself to read more. 

These goals, I thought, were easy, because I had already done them.  They were accomplished, and, being done, required minimal effort to maintain. 

It has been anything but easy.  I still set my alarm in the morning, desiring to get up in the morning to run.  But, for whatever reason, I don’t get up in the morning, making the excuses for myself, that it is raining, or it’s too cold, or that I am tired.  I promise myself that I will run in the afternoon, that I will run extra tomorrow. 

And sometimes, I do, when I am honest with myself.  But often, I let the day slip away, allowing the sand to slip through my fingers without doing anything. 

I participated in National Novel Writing Month, and I surpassed the fifty thousand word count.  But I didn’t finish the last word of the novel, the one that closed the book, that made the story complete.  I made a good run, but, when I saw the finish line, I fell down flat, letting the ennui of daily writing hold me back.

That is not to say that I didn’t accomplish anything else during the year.  I reacquainted myself with photography, learning the old concepts that I learned in my youth and familiarizing myself with newer ones.  I learned more about the mind and how we thing.  I tried and won a case, obtained judgments, collecting monies for clients.  All these things are positives. 

They are all plates which I am holding and keep holding, expending a depleting source of energy waiting for it to give out. 

The thing that is not readily apparent when you accomplish your goal is that it has to be maintained, with the same level and intensity that you arrived there.  If you lose weight, you have to continue to eat healthy and exercise in order to maintain it.  If you wrote a book, you have to continue writing and feel the mental strain of continued writing in order to do it again.

Transforming, renewal, rebirth.  All are processes subject to entropy, the gradual breakdown of the goal which requires more and more energy to maintain. 

As this new year rolls around, I am making the same promises to myself, to write more, to read more, to maintain the weight I worked so hard to shed.  I have made an agreement with myself to exert more energy to maintain the levels of achievement I had in the past.  I do it because it is a better alternative to surrendering to the ennui of giving up, of seeing the futility in it. 

There is a sense of peace and gratification, standing one legged on a precipice balancing plates, and a transcendence, which moves beyond plates and life itself, so that, in the end, if a plate or two falls, or even if you fall into that chasm, you are satisfied with yourself knowing that you went down trying.