Essay #1:
Entropy and Order
In Universes
Great and Small
Entropy — definition #5 (www.dictionary.com ): Inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society.
Entropy
I don't think I'd get many arguments about describing a car on a highway as a mini-universe. I felt proud, as I drove through California the first day on my trip, of the order in my little universe! True, most of the back seat, as well as the entire trunk, was stuffed with clothing to be delivered to the family in Chicago. (Actually, most the trunk was taken up by a sub-woofer, given to the 16-year old owner of the car for his birthday by a grandparent — and turned off at my request.)
But the area of the car that was available for my use had everything in its proper place: laptop, notebooks and books and pens in my shoulder bag; teabags and little culinary embellishments in a leather bag, along with my 7 audio-books; big duffel bag full of my clothes in the back seat, along with a small guitar I brought along; camera and cellphone in a pocket of the door beside me; Atlas out, open to the map of the state I was in, on top of the bag on the passenger's seat. Oh yes, and a plastic bag for trash on the floor.
This was a perfect scheme, and whenever I used anything, I made sure to replace it as close to exactly where it had been as a person can, while driving seventy miles an hour. At stops, I would tidy what could not be done on the road.
I'm not a compulsively neat person at home, as my wife and many other people I've lived with will tell you. But in the tiny world of a car, on a long trip, order is essential!
And I'm not spouting this as theory. I'm saying it because during my second day on the road, as I drove from Fallon to Delta, Utah, maintaining perfect order became impossible for various reasons . As the day passed, simple operations like getting out a tea bag, then adding chai masala or a touch of coconut powder to the tea, which I'd done smoothly the previous day, became prohibitively difficult. When I attempted them, the results were messy.
The audio-book bag wound up on the floor, and I couldn't see the trash bag. I wound up putting trash papers in the zip-loc bags with my condiments. The Atlas itself went traveling somewhere under other things. After awhile, every time I needed to get to anything, I would experience a moment of chaos and panic. I kept my eyes and mind on the road, mind you, but wrestling with one's possessions (it's absolutely necessary to get something or other now and then) while driving becomes extremely fatiguing.
That is why, when I pulled into Delta, Utah that evening, I didn't motel-shop, I simply put up my $79 at the Comfort Inn and exposed my frazzled self to the perfect order of the freshly-cleaned room. And felt oh, so grateful!
After a shower and dinner, which refreshed me somewhat, I spent about an hour putting all the bags and loose items from my car on the bed and floor, meticulously replacing everything precisely in the niche it had occupied at the beginning of the trip. Satisfied that the blessed Logos — a cosmic Reason, Everything-Making- Sense — would return to my car-world upon my carrying everything back to the vehicle in the morning, I was able to fall asleep without worry. When I woke I felt renewed and truly raring to go.
(time to rejoin those who went ahead without reading the important piece of prose above)
*****
if ya want to wimp out and go back to Fallon
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