Do I prefer chaos over order? Housekeeping baffles me. I take mild offense at the organizational tools of the home: file cabinet, clothes closet, dish rack, or bookshelf—the “orderly righteousness” of these objects advocates nothing more than passive-aggressive coercion (and/or moral censure). They condescend to their consumers. In seeking containment, they invariably contain us with prescriptive order.

Entropy is not necessarily chaotic, as I once believed: “The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.” Does “uniformity” suggest order, organization, and monotony? I cannot bear that the ultimate outcome is characteristically boring and fundamentally static (death). And what of the immeasurable beauty and diversity of the world in perpetual motion? How did we come to inherit the earth with all its stunning and vigorous amenities?