Isolated Systems
A Reflection
Perhaps I could just… do a little more to “catch up” at work. To “get ahead.” Jump back into that unresolved problem now, so that I don’t have to worry about it on Monday. To “feel lighter.” To “make space.”
There’s the lie, right there: the “making space.”
In physics, we are taught to treat systems as nearly isolated. Allow energy exchange between the isolated system and its surroundings, but never matter. Never the actual stuff that systems are made of. Matter is to remain inside its perfect little box. We do this so that we can understand, because when we treat systems as they truly are—as permeable to the flow of matter and energy—they get too hard to evaluate, calculate, quantify, and predict.
How do I get the stuff in my little isolated box, my ideal, closed system, out without removing a partition? And what do I expect when I remove that partition and let the stuff out?
I can’t allow this anymore.
I know that if I let the current stuff out, other stuff moves in whether I like it or not. Always. There is no void that remains a void. The natural order requires that something fills the void.
When we “make space,” we don’t always get to keep it.
We make our best plans, those rigid little systems, and then we observe the natural world do its thing. Nothing is truly impervious; sometimes, your appendix gets angry, or it rains, or a job that you’ve permitted to take up too much space just spills over the edges, and these things must be dealt with first. We must have the surgery, accommodate the weather, and cut out the job that does not want to remain contained within our boundaries.
The walls must have windows, doors, and vents. We must let matter and energy in, and out. This is how we integrate.
I should stop trying to swim upstream, to prevent the flow of matter and energy into and out of my life. I am the damper. I am the valve, the flow regulator.
The natural universe is fluid, and so, this new life system I’ve constructed must do a better job of accommodating this flow, and I should too.