The Second Law of Thermodynamics - as applied to LAN shops.
Alright so i've got a pretty damn glorious title up there don't I? Surely that must mean there's going to be some amazingly insightful text to read below, right?
Right??
Well anyway. As the loyal readers (if any) amongst you surely know, I like using the second law of thermodynamics in my writing a fair bit. (For those who are interested, the last time i checked there were 3 laws. Basically they can be summed up like this:
1. You can't win.
2. Everybody loses.
3. You can't get out of the game.
Short, succint, slightly cheesy, but pretty accurate, all things considered.)
Quick recap: The Second Law states that within any closed system (read: a house, a society, a planet, a universe etc.) the amount of chaos within that system will, over time, increase, and only increase. The idea is that entropy will continually march forward under all conditions and in all circumstances (because when you get down to it, everything counts as a closed system). And its pretty true. Civilizations collapse (name one that hasnt. Present ones notwithstanding, of course. Our being alive now negates any ability to pass judgment.), things grow all and die, even bedrooms get steadily more messed up as calender pages pass away. Think about it. The Law works.
But then again its all very good to KNOW something, but to know something is, well, something else, isn't it? if you catch my drift. We're all creatures of emotion and illogical thought, no matter what we'd like to think to the contrary.
So! To the crux of the matter.
There's this cybercafe in Thomson Plaza that I've been going to since God knows when. If I had to guess (and i dont, really, but i'd like to) i'd say its been about four or five years at least. I'm friends with the owners of the place, and also the fifty or so guys who've worked in the shop. Its like i've seen the place grow up, in a bizarre sense: from a shop which dealt solely in CS (incidentally one of the greatest games of all time, in my opinion. Proof: its been around for 8 years at least and its still going strong) to a real souped-up place with pretty much any game you could want. Within reasonable limits, of course.
It seemed like it'd always be there. A permanent place I could head to whenever there wasn't much to do, or when my fingers were feeling a little antsy. And yet, just yesterday it closed.
Entropy set in, and the shop, having been increasingly poorly maintained over time, eventually became too lousy for anyone serious to want to go there. Business got bad, then worse, then "no fucking way am I wasting more money on this", and so on Thursday, the 31st of March, 2005, finally came the night they called it a day.
Thing is, my mind could hardly wrap itself around the idea of this shop not existing. It'd always been a place of fun and swearing and good old horsing around, of typical male bonhomie. And then as if someone did no more than flick a switch, it was gone. Good old law number two had run its course, and that was that.
It made me sit back and think, it really did. The thoughts I was thinking weren't particularly original - but then what really is? - but they were important. This, in a way, drove home the impermanence of things, and the idea that everything is in a constant state of flux, if one can only think on a sufficiently broad enough time-scale.
So what's the conclusion i've drawn from all of this? Nothing lasts. Now i'm not taking a nihilistic approach to Life, the Universe and Everything, neither am i about to say So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish (I may, however, wish to dine at The Restaurant at the End of the Universe sometime soon). But I'm definitely in a frame of mind at the moment that is somewhat cynical.
Cynical cynical cynical
everything's always inimical
to you, it does seem
everything's so damn mean.
Oh and things are always political.
++++++++++
I wish you were here.
i adorn myself with lies you see
until you barely can perceive
the weaknesses i try and heave
outta the fucken door
but just because i hide them well
dont mean that everything is swell
and trust me, people, time will tell:
i'll crumble soon for sure.
Right??
Well anyway. As the loyal readers (if any) amongst you surely know, I like using the second law of thermodynamics in my writing a fair bit. (For those who are interested, the last time i checked there were 3 laws. Basically they can be summed up like this:
1. You can't win.
2. Everybody loses.
3. You can't get out of the game.
Short, succint, slightly cheesy, but pretty accurate, all things considered.)
Quick recap: The Second Law states that within any closed system (read: a house, a society, a planet, a universe etc.) the amount of chaos within that system will, over time, increase, and only increase. The idea is that entropy will continually march forward under all conditions and in all circumstances (because when you get down to it, everything counts as a closed system). And its pretty true. Civilizations collapse (name one that hasnt. Present ones notwithstanding, of course. Our being alive now negates any ability to pass judgment.), things grow all and die, even bedrooms get steadily more messed up as calender pages pass away. Think about it. The Law works.
But then again its all very good to KNOW something, but to know something is, well, something else, isn't it? if you catch my drift. We're all creatures of emotion and illogical thought, no matter what we'd like to think to the contrary.
So! To the crux of the matter.
There's this cybercafe in Thomson Plaza that I've been going to since God knows when. If I had to guess (and i dont, really, but i'd like to) i'd say its been about four or five years at least. I'm friends with the owners of the place, and also the fifty or so guys who've worked in the shop. Its like i've seen the place grow up, in a bizarre sense: from a shop which dealt solely in CS (incidentally one of the greatest games of all time, in my opinion. Proof: its been around for 8 years at least and its still going strong) to a real souped-up place with pretty much any game you could want. Within reasonable limits, of course.
It seemed like it'd always be there. A permanent place I could head to whenever there wasn't much to do, or when my fingers were feeling a little antsy. And yet, just yesterday it closed.
Entropy set in, and the shop, having been increasingly poorly maintained over time, eventually became too lousy for anyone serious to want to go there. Business got bad, then worse, then "no fucking way am I wasting more money on this", and so on Thursday, the 31st of March, 2005, finally came the night they called it a day.
Thing is, my mind could hardly wrap itself around the idea of this shop not existing. It'd always been a place of fun and swearing and good old horsing around, of typical male bonhomie. And then as if someone did no more than flick a switch, it was gone. Good old law number two had run its course, and that was that.
It made me sit back and think, it really did. The thoughts I was thinking weren't particularly original - but then what really is? - but they were important. This, in a way, drove home the impermanence of things, and the idea that everything is in a constant state of flux, if one can only think on a sufficiently broad enough time-scale.
So what's the conclusion i've drawn from all of this? Nothing lasts. Now i'm not taking a nihilistic approach to Life, the Universe and Everything, neither am i about to say So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish (I may, however, wish to dine at The Restaurant at the End of the Universe sometime soon). But I'm definitely in a frame of mind at the moment that is somewhat cynical.
Cynical cynical cynical
everything's always inimical
to you, it does seem
everything's so damn mean.
Oh and things are always political.
++++++++++
I wish you were here.
i adorn myself with lies you see
until you barely can perceive
the weaknesses i try and heave
outta the fucken door
but just because i hide them well
dont mean that everything is swell
and trust me, people, time will tell:
i'll crumble soon for sure.
posted by Timothy at 6:10 pm
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