I’m going to just come right out and say it. This blog post is about how the world tends toward chaos unless people act, and there’s some noble beauty to be found in that activity.
OK, there it is. You can stop reading right now and go do something else if you like, because it would be tedious to continue reading the next several hundred words and frustrating to discover this post just illuminates the ideas already presented in the first paragraph. So here’s your out, if you want to take it. And I wouldn’t blame you one bit. Otherwise, let’s light it up!
The world tends toward chaos.
Don’t take my word for it, just follow The Second Law of Thermodynamics. The Law says that without energy input, everything moves toward disorder (entropy). Inaction leads to demise. Machines break, buildings crumble, civilizations decline. This isn’t just physics; it’s a fundamental truth of life.
Entropy is a physical process, but it also delivers an emotional impact — the feelings of loss, decay, helplessness, loneliness. The gravitational pull of entropy may cause people to become cold and detached. It invites a kind of seductive nihilism. “What’s the point?” you may ask. “If decay is inevitable, then isn’t all our activity equivalent to building sandcastles on the beach before the tide comes in?”
I don’t think so. It’s true, doing nothing invites decline. But if you choose to act in whatever domain you inhabit, you not only defy this decline, you also have the potential to create meaning. Building things (businesses, art, relationships), learning and growing, making conscious, deliberate choices, we create meaning by fighting against entropy, by resisting chaos.
If you think about it, the opposite of active isn’t passive; the opposite of active is reactive. Inaction isn’t neutral. Since the natural tendency of the world is toward chaos, choosing inaction eventually forces you into a position where you must react.
This is the backdrop for slogans like “Silence equals death,” or Benjamin Franklin’s zinger, “You may delay, but time will not.” The question is, whether to act in a manner and time of your choosing, or be forced to react in a manner and time that has been chosen for you.
Some things in life do happen passively. Recently I read the shocking statistic that livestock produce roughly 150 million metric tons of methane per year, the ecological equivalent of emissions from all cars, planes, and ships worldwide. Shit happens. But important things happen through conscious action — by making choices, applying effort, and intentionally shaping outcomes.
Active behavior is the conscious application of choice. It is the exercise of free will. It is behavior that stems from a person’s values, what’s considered important, meaningful, worthwhile of effort at at any given moment.
Your heart beats, your lungs inhale and exhale, and you go on living without the need to exert conscious energy. But you can also change your breathing and change your heartbeat. You can focus on ideas that help you to be calm or make you excited, angry, or scared.
My life and your life and all our lives reflect our relationship with activity. Physical fitness is the result of actively working on physical fitness. So is mental fitness. Learning happens through engagement, not just exposure. Creativity requires effort—it isn’t just a product of happenstance. Even Jackson Pollock’s drip-and-splash abstract paintings, which appear as pure randomness, were meticulously produced through deliberate dripping and splashing.
Conscious activity is a reflection of what you consider to be important and, consequently, what you consider to be less important. Your activity reflects your priorities. Your activities stem from the desire to make the world a teeny tiny bit different from the place it is currently.
This blog recently discussed “The Adjacent Possible,” a concept about expanding your future through action. Remember, the adjacent possible is a state of possibilities that are immediately reachable, and your activities, innovations, and discoveries can expand the scope of what’s attainable.
Remember also, this theory acknowledges the limitations of what is possible at any given time. If your adjacent possible is not expanding through conscious activity, then it is contracting. While actions open new doors and allow you to reach further, then choosing inactivity causes doors to eventually close. Doors become sealed by life’s ceaseless forces of entropy. Knowledge fades when not applied. What isn’t maintained falls apart. “Rust never sleeps,” observed Neil Young, ever wise. “Old man, look at my life. I’m a lot like you were.”
Being reactive means letting life happen to you. Being active means shaping your life, seizing opportunities, and taking control of your time.
Actually, there’s something beautiful in the struggle against entropy. Living entities temporarily defy entropy by consuming energy and converting it to metabolic activity. Living is itself an act of rebellion against chaos. Congratulations, your life is one big, beautiful, messy defiance of entropy!
This blog is about creating singular links — or slinks — which are complex things created by combining simple things. Slinks generally don’t happen by accident; they are the product of an active mindset, brought into existence by the creative act of slinking. Every great achievement, invention, and discovery comes from conscious action. Slinking is about taking small steps to open up big possibilities.
Everywhere I look, I see the world as a greasy grappling match between chaos and order. Within that struggle, moments of happiness can be found. Happiness is a state of recognized order — fleeting, but beautiful. It arises when things “click” into place — when life, relationships, or achievements momentarily align in a way that makes sense and feels fulfilling. But like all forms of order, happiness is temporary. Entropy, change, and unpredictability always return. This doesn’t make those moments of happiness meaningless — it makes them precious.
Embrace the struggle against entropy: find meaning in the efforts to create order and resist decay. Don’t be a passenger in your own life. Slinkers of the world, rise up!
In the words of Peter Drucker, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
The world tends toward chaos unless you act, and there is some noble beauty in that activity.