Brownian Motion

All metaphysical existentialist talks always seem to go searching for the answer of the ultimate meaning of the universe and why things are the way they are. Shuffling through different views on this matter has always been interesting with different views influenced by that person's interests and specialities whether it be scientific, philosophical or artful. For me, I have always enjoyed that link between my primitive knowledge of the universe through high school physics and attempting to understand the seeming chaos that is life.


Life seemingly defies the 2nd law of thermodynamics that spontaneous reactions can only occur if there is an increase in the entropy of the universe. Life seems organised, and so how could something organised be created spontaneously as it did sometime between the big bang and now? One of my friends has perhaps one of the most nihilist views in that perhaps all life comes down to mere brownian motion. That my sheer coincidence of particle randomness, somehow it all came together to form life. My friend even extends his metaphor to our very lives now as well. That all our decisions, all the events that occur might just be brownian motion. That choices aren't choices but that everyone is simply a particle residing in a chaotic sprawl of further particles suspending in a fluid-like world. As a result of random collisions, or interactions with other people, we might deviate randomly and continue onwards. This means that the meaning or order we perceive is merely a artificial rationalisation of a much more random process. In a nihilist way, this view simplifies life to being something that is completely out of our control and indeed it definitely feels that way at times.

I think I like the idea of having control over my life all the time with my intense scheduling and the way I want everything to be nice, ordered and preferably my way. That somehow I can determine the fate of my life but that's just it, at times it feels like life follows some sort of fate, or destiny outside my control. Not in the predetermined sense but more so in the undetermined sense, that it's just so random sometimes that a theory like my friend's seems to match it so well.

So my writing process normally begins with a thought, a small stem to expand on in order to write a whole piece. Unfortunately many of those thought stems have not sprouted to become a post in recent times so I apologise to my small readership for the lack of posts. But one of those stems that seems half related to this post is the moment that I was sitting in a train after a night out. As I began sobering up and looked out the train windows, the remains of a short rainstorm were left on the window as droplets of water. In a seemingly random manner, the droplets trickle down the glass but as they forge a path down the sometimes bump into other droplets. These combine and then proceed to descend faster, possibly bumping into even more droplets, and together form a small stream down the window. My personality has always been to draw the most significance from something so minor and in that moment, it really felt like these most insignificant rain droplets were emphasising a point in life. That we all may be lost droplets of rain wandering a vast abyss until we find another droplet to combine with, then it gets easier and easier to find more droplets and also reach the bottom of the window faster whatever that destination might symbolise. The thought that somehow humans can be like rain droplets is so ridiculous that I could only attribute my thought stem to alcohol induced stupor.

With that note, I'll leave you till next time my rants make it to publication.

Enjoying my "last weekend before studying" for the millionth time so bye.