Change

Entropy is the characteristic all things have to stay in their current state, whether in motion or in stillness. Unless an outside force acts upon a person or thing, he, she or it will tend to stay in motion or stillness. Our lives are completely devoid of entropy because there are always forces acting upon us. Change is our usual state. It is the one constant we all experience.

Therefore, it is not change that bothers us most, but the heightening or lessening of it. My wife and I are having some remodeling done. We both find this stressful. I used to make a living redoing houses, but that fact doesn’t make things any the less painful. We both have strategies to combat the increase of change. Hers is to order out the details as she encounters them; mine is to determine where my presence is most needed and to be there. That means that I must also figure out what is best for me to do when I’m not in the house. I have, for instance, a project in the shop, and I’ll spend time on it.

Some of us, I think, gravitate toward craft work because it seems as though we can control the change (and change of change) that we’ll have to experience. My life is a testimony to the fact that this is not so. From the death of a spouse to the wedding to another, cats, putting in a garden, house remodeling, finishing and starting projects, and changes in the lives of my children (and my new wife’s children), change continues to flare up and be as uncontrollable and unpredictable as always. The older I get the more (and more deeply) the changing affects me.

What can I do? Change that meets wood creates beautiful patterns. My issue is can I meet the changes. Will I have the resources I need? All I can do is to let the change come and use the resources as they appear. I’ll have to leave it up to someone else to say whether the pattern created is beautiful or not.