entropy

entropy is defined among other things as a doctrine of inevitable social decline and degeneration and a measure of disorder or randomness in a closed system...synonyms for the word include destruction, collapse, decline, decay...it was a word that a former professor of mine attributed to an artist named Robert Smithson...he was consumed with the idea of entropy and he saw it everywhere, especially in nature [see "Spiral Jetty", if you are interested in Smithson]...and all of a sudden so was i...i always thought my father had this morbid fascination with death, especially his...we spent part of one of my childhood vacations visiting his tombstone and posing next to it for a family portrait of which i decided to skip out of...this being said i guess as an adult i get it more...he has a lifelong, debilitating illness, he constantly thinks about his soul and where it will go when his life is over and doesn't allow himself much time for other things in his thoughts...so, i can kind of see where he was coming

as for me... from my inception of this entropy into my world; now i see the decline, destruction and decay everywhere...some of that entropy makes me sad; for example, when a great building gets torn down in the name of progress or some shotty strip mall...some entropy makes me angry; for example, when i see the decline in society as represented by many of my students and their parents....some entropy i find frustrating because of the need for order in my world and for some entropy i find it to be beautiful; for example...

i know it is the burned out corner of some random house...but, walking among these modern ruins and seeing all the different shades of grays, browns and blacks was beautiful...it was a lucky stumble upon as four weeks after photographing the last evidence of the existence of this house it was leveled and the area all around it cleared for the building of a new church.

i see beautiful decay in many places...entropy is everywhere