A few days ago, while scrolling through videos, I first encountered that unfamiliar yet somewhat unsettling term—entropy increase.
Entropy increase is a concept in physics, meaning the degree of disorder in a system continuously increases. In plain language: No matter how hard you try, the world is constantly moving towards disorder, dispersion, and decay.
The video gave an example: “Why does a house quickly fall into disrepair if no one lives in it?” This introduced the concept of entropy increase.
If no one lives in a house, dust will gradually settle, items will slowly become disorganized, and humidity will erode the walls… Over time, the house will become dilapidated. But if people live in it, they will clean and tidy things, and the house will remain neat. Time is like a big hand, pushing everything towards disorder.
It’s what people commonly call “liveliness” or “human presence.” It’s like those newly renovated houses that people don’t live in themselves but immediately rent out, letting others help absorb the formaldehyde, haha.
A comment in the comment section struck me hard
Someone wrote:
After reading it, I felt very uncomfortable again. Since childhood, I’ve been pondering a question: While I’m alive, I can use my brain to record anything. But after I die, my thoughts will completely vanish, and I will no longer exist. The thought of this makes me feel so awful.
That very sentence suddenly pulled me back to my childhood, awakening dormant memories.
The first time I realized “death”
It was probably when I was very, very young that I first seriously thought, “I will die.” I imagined myself dying, and then fantasized about the world after death. I felt that after death, my consciousness would disappear, and all the knowledge and skills I had acquired would cease to exist. I found this feeling very distressing; I was afraid of losing myself, afraid of disappearing forever. In the end, I would always cry and throw myself into my mother’s arms, as if by doing so, I could grasp onto something certain, preventing the world from completely falling apart.
It wasn’t until I discussed this topic with friends later that I realized…
I wasn’t the only one.
That day, I chatted a bit in a group, and unexpectedly, Jiuri, who was next to me, also said they had thought about such things when they were young. It turns out this fear wasn’t “just me being weird,” but a battle many people had silently fought in their hearts.
As I grew up, I often thought about these questions
- Why are we alive?
- What is the meaning of life?
- Will everything we do eventually amount to nothing?
After all, we bring nothing into this world and take nothing out. Effort, achievements, money, relationships… One day, we’ll have to let go of it all.
I told Jiuri that day:
“Work, life, strictly speaking, none of it has meaning. But if we do things that make us happy and feel worthwhile, that’s enough.”
Perhaps this is why, historical figures so yearned to “leave their name in history.” It wasn’t for vanity, but to contend with the two immense forces of entropy increase and oblivion.
You see, some want immortality, some want to be remembered, ultimately, it’s all about not wanting “me” to completely disappear.
This reminds me of a line from “Atri: My Dear Moments”—
“If one gives up struggling just because death is inevitable, then human life itself has no meaning.”
If we could truly preserve all human memories, thoughts, and emotions, like Atri, without worrying about disappearing, being forgotten, or descending into chaos… how gentle that would be.
But in the real world, there’s no “permanent preservation.”
We can only watch as time makes everything old, scattered, and distant.
Even if there’s an afterlife, what then?
If, in the next life, we drink that bowl of Meng Po soup, and like Isla in “Plastic Memories"— forget ourselves, forget the people we once loved, forget everything we cried over, laughed at, and felt moved by…
Wouldn’t such a rebirth be another form of death?
So, perhaps the meaning of life is never about something specific
We cannot stop entropy increase, nor can we halt the flow of time.
But on this journey towards chaos, we can continuously:
- Tidy a room
- Mend a relationship
- Write a piece of text
- Embrace someone we love
- Ignite a tiny spark within ourselves
These extremely small, almost powerless things, which cannot possibly resist the cosmic trend, yet in this very moment of our existence, make “I existed” real. Perhaps the meaning lies here.
In a world of entropy increase, we still choose to create our own “order” again and again.
Even if the end is dissipation, the process is still worthwhile.
