Ugly side of nature

If you’re looking for some consolation, I’m not sure this is it, but I’ll tell you something my undergraduate physics professor tells his students: The second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that entropy, the inherent disorder in the universe, is always increasing. Every action we take creates disorder. Even when we try to create ordered systems, the cost in entropy is always higher than the order we create. Eventually, the entropy of the universe will be so great that there is no longer any matter. It will all have been converted to radiant energy and scattered to the farthest reaches of the universe where it can no longer interact with anything. Life itself is an incredibly complex ordered system. There are so many different chemicals that have to bind together in just the right order and so many different systems that have to work together in just one simple organism, the fact that anything as complex as a cell, or a plant, an animal or a person even exists in the first place is nothing short of impossible. The only reason that this can occur at all is the fact that these incredibly ordered systems only exist for an infinitesimal fraction of a second in the lifetime of the universe. So be glad that you are here to experience it in all of its variety and complexity. Life and death, good and bad, beautiful and ugly are not concepts that will exist forever.

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