Entropy explains why we can't be ourselves

It is the job of the universe to bring things back to chaos—increase entropy.

It takes a conscious effort to resist it and build something worthwhile and orderly. You can see this through the natural process of decomposition, diffusion, erosion wearing down mountains, relationships drifting apart without attention, skills atrophying without practice, and organizations dissolving into dysfunction without deliberate structure and maintenance. This is the second law of thermodynamics, that the entropy of an isolated system will always stay the same or increase.

Now you might think that if the universe is automatically going towards a disorder, then how were complex creatures like animals, humans created? The key in the definition is “isolated system.”

Earth was able to be different because simple self-replicating molecules that could capture and use energy at a survival advantage. Over billions of years, natural selection favored sophisticated ways of harvesting the sun’s energy—leading to the complex biological machinery we see today.

Just like Earth needs the sun’s energy to sustain complex life, you need constant energy inputs to avoid becoming average. This doesn’t just include food, it includes high-quality information such as books, conversations with accomplished people, challenging experiences, exercise, sleep, nutrition, mental stimulation by stepping out of the comfort zone.

Low-quality inputs corrode this. Here are a few examples: mindless scrolling, gossip, and processed thoughts from others without pushback. Consuming without creating, reacting without reflecting, repeating without questioning are signs of a society that is falling into entropy.

Choose passive consumption over active engagement and you build your own isolated system. Cut yourself off from challenging ideas and meaningful friction, and you drift toward intellectual equilibrium with your environment—the universe’s definition of average.

Without awareness and active effort to resist entropification, people stop learning. They surround themselves with similar thinkers—an echo chamber—avoid discomfort, and gradually decay into predictable patterns. Their skills eventually atrophy, their curiosity dies, their relationships stagnate. Just like a world without the input of a kind and powerful sun, everything slowly deteriorates and starts to smooth itself into its surroundings.

An important thing to note here is that increasing entropy isn’t the process of destruction. It isn’t complete chaos. Neither is it order. It is just diffusion—apathy, or mediocrity.

The universe’s default is mediocrity.

This also works on a larger scale: ordered society and democracy is not the norm. The norm is tyranny, dictatorship—It’s still order, not anarchy, but a very mediocre kind.

In fact, the reason why tyranny can come into place isn’t because of deliberate evil; it’s because of stupidity. Even if people do not deliberately mean to harm others, they become silent helpers of injustice through obedience and conformity.

Albert Einstein once said, “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”

While evil knows it is doing wrong and often hides behind lies, stupidity believes it is doing good and feels proud of its blindness. People who cannot think clearly allow injustice to grow and spread.

When people stop questioning, they become tools that others can use. They believe whatever they are told and reject facts that make them uncomfortable, and defend falsehoods as if they were sacred truths.

This is also the concept of groupthink. People would rather conform and be accepted by the crowd, by their group, than be right on their own because being right on your own is revolutionary—it is not the universe’s default.

Social media keeps us trapped inside worlds that only reflect what we already believe. We repeat slogans that we’ve already heard instead of seeking the truth.

A lie told often enough becomes the truth.

A mediocre person obeys without question, believes without evidence, and attacks anyone who challenges their beliefs. Freedom only begins when we think honestly, question assumptions, and seek the truth even if it isolates us. This has been the case across all generations and throughout human history. Have the courage to resist the universe’s entropy.

To love your neighbor is in the Ten Commandments because it is not something people normally do. They need to be reminded to put active energy into doing that.

To be yourself is not the norm. Falling into conformity is the norm. It takes a deliberate energy to be yourself—it isn’t easy.

But it also isn’t an option, because differentiation is survival. This is also known as homeostasis. We need to maintain our own internal temperatures, water content, acidity, which is occasionally drastically different from the surrounding. The alternative is, invariably, death.

Never let the universe smooth you into its surroundings.