A few days ago if you had seen a load of flying laundry neatly settle itself into a box and a woman holding it levitate up from an ungainly sprawl as a broken board snapped sharply together under her feet you\u2019d know something had gone wrong with the laws of physics.<\/p>\n
Namely, the second Law of Thermodynamics which basically states that the energy levels in an isolated system will tend toward equilibrium. Within that Law, entropy is a measure of the disorder of a system. Natural processes will always proceed in the direction that increases the disorder of a system. This is called \u201cthe arrow of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Or to put it in laymen terms: Entropy is the amount of energy that is no longer available to do work \u2014 something falling into chaos and\/or ruin is an illustration of an increase in entropy.<\/p>\n
Or, to put it in my own words, a board in my front deck rotted and I fell through it, acquiring an interesting assortment of bruises, but thankfully no broken bones, in the process.<\/p>\n
Everything in Southeast Alaska is vulnerable to the forces of decay by virtue of its rainy, temperate climate. It\u2019s a constant battle of man against entropy in the wilderness, and sometimes it seems that goes double for floathouse dwellers.<\/p>\n
Sometimes the wilderness, or Duma of Decay (Duma is Russian for \u201ccouncil\u201d or \u201cparliament\u201d) as I like to call it, gives you telltale signs that the arrow of time is working to bring about your literal downfall. We were taught when we were very young to never step on boards that had mushrooms or moss growing on them, or had white spotted areas, or were soft to the touch.<\/p>\n
But sometimes there\u2019s no warning at all in the silent, covert work of entropy. Like when I fell through my deck. Or when I fell through a rung on the roof ladder when I was trying to clean the chimney.<\/p>\n
Any fisherman who\u2019s had a wooden boat knows what I\u2019m talking about. My dad spent a good portion of his time as a boat owner replacing vital areas of the hull, deck, and cabin. In fact, when he first got his boat he had to re-build most of it because so much of it had given way to the forces of entropy. There\u2019s a shipwreck near us that is slowly deteriorating into a moss-covered heap due to its rotten hull springing a leak.<\/p>\n
Also nearby is a century-old trapper\u2019s cabin built of square-cut logs. Over the years we\u2019ve watched it settle and subside and lose its history, its existence, to the Duma of Decay.<\/p>\n