With such a title, depending upon my mood, I could write some heart-breaking Dickensian blog post (in both verbosity and tone) about how our lives are easily likened to entropy, quickly and easily going from order to disorder in an isolated system. I’d probably throw in some play on words involving the danger of isolation and our need for people and how our relationships naturally become entropic if we do not put in the work to stop it from happening.

But this is not that post.

I have a problem with reverse entropy. When left isolated, I become excessively ordered.

A friend was over last night with the idea of helping me get him started with a web site. I, of course, came up with a pile of ideas and had an idea of how it should be done (i.e. how I would do it).

I am a person who abuses the concept of “folders” on my hard drive. I have sub-folders of sub-folders of sub-folders of sub-folders… I want everything so organized that I can’t find a darn thing.

In the same way, I was making the website overly complicated as far as how I thought it ought to be set up. It didn’t seem overly complicated at the time; rather, it seemed logical and simple. Other website designers would probably have agreed that I was coming up with some logical solutions. What I was suggesting, however, wasn’t being snapped up as gold, however. I was, in fact, getting a bit annoyed that it seemed like my very logical and based-on-experience opinion was being ignored.

“I think we should do such and such,” I said.

He shook his head. “I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t think we should make it any more complicated than we have to.”

And then it hit me, as my friend explained his reasoning for wanting to keep things stripped down and basic: less is more. Occam’s razor for web design, if you will. There was no need for excessive complexity or frills and that I needed to step back and see the complete project for what it was and how it would be possibly managed in the future.

It applies to life, obviously. I’ve written a lot about the importance of less being more, yet failed to apply it here because I couldn’t see the application. Just like too many managers and too much hierarchy and too many opinions clog the gears…too much order makes things complicated and, oddly, disordered.

I guess, in a way, the way I function ends up being true entropy. I become so ordered that it gets to the point where I can’t find anything and the true nature of disorderliness is revealed.