As this year comes to an end and it is clear that things are falling apart globally, a single desultory word comes to mind. It is entropy.

An online dictionary defines the word thus. In physics, where entropy measures a system's randomness, disorder or energy dispersal, it represents "a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system". The Second Law of Thermodynamics says, quite pessimistically, that the total entropy of an isolated system increases over time inevitably, meaning that "natural processes tend to move from order to disorder, heat flows spontaneously from hot to cold, and perfect energy conversion to work is impossible".

Time is like an arrow. It has been released. It cannot be captured. A broken egg cannot reassemble itself spontaneously; and events in the real world are irreversible. Consequently, the total entropy of the universe never decreases. Indeed, one day, the universe could reach a state of maximum entropy, called thermal equilibrium or heat death, where "all energy is evenly distributed and no more work can be done". That would be the end.

Beyond physics, entropy signifies a general "lack of order or predictability" and "gradual decline into disorder", an example being the economic metaphor of "a marketplace where entropy reigns supreme". The laws of supply and demand do not meet any longer. The distance between them has been captured by anarchy: Children starve, adults fight over diminishing goods, famine stalks all, and neither buyer or seller has anywhere to run.

However, biology shines a ray of hope on the desolate landscape of physics and economics alike by arguing that "life maintains order by expending energy" to fight the increase in local entropy. That is, the sum total of life on earth seeks to preserve itself by overcoming the loss of energy in one or several parts of itself. That is because all life (unlike physical particles or chemical reactions or biological cells) is self-conscious. Nothing that is conscious seeks its own destruction.

Yet, biology offers no panacea ultimately because of a condition called atrophy. According to Briannica, atrophy means a "decrease in size of a body part, cell, organ, or other tissue. The term implies that the atrophied part was of a size normal for the individual, considering age and circumstance, prior to the diminution. In atrophy of an organ or body part, there may be a reduction in the number or in the size of the component cells, or in both". Ultimately, atrophy cannot but contribute to the death of the individual, much as entropy might lead to thermal equilibrium.

Caught between my gradual physical decline and the ultimate descent of the universe into chaos, I mark the passing of this year as but an insignificant milestone in the history of humanity writ large - in you and me - and writ small, in just me.

And yet, every lifetime, every decade, every year, every month, every day, every second and every breath that we take matters. Because every moment when we are alive forces us to think beyond ourselves here and in the hereafter. The entropic death of the universe is another matter altogether. All thinking will cease with it. That is none of our conscious business today and for all the todays that remain.

But we are thinking in the here-and-now of today. Thinking is the chief attribute of the human species: "I think, therefore I am." Thinking is not just the fundamental right of humanity but also its ultimate responsibility. There is, and there should not be, any escape from thinking.

Einstein

But what does it mean to think?

Albert Einstein encourages humans to think by asking them to move outside the known constructs of their being. He says: "No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it." So? "We must learn to see the world anew." To put it simply, since most minds produce problems with their familiar and futile ways of thinking, some minds at least need to step outside the universe produced by old knowledge and step into new paradigms of awareness and action. Assumptions, mental habits and mindsets that produce problems need to be revised and rejected if necessary to resolve those problems. New perspectives lead the way forward. As a saying goes, only the path that you step on can show you the path ahead.

The crucial problem today is that few are willing to step into the flow of life. And those who dare to do so are sidelined by the mainstream of mindless mobs, which are controlled and manipulated by those in power; reviled and killed as religious heretics; or banished from the national path for exiled travels abroad in the loneliness of civic solitude. The problems created by consciousness can be resolved at a higher level because of the gravitational pull of unforgiving circumstances. The environment has no religious or even secular affiliation and should therefore be treated as an intrinsic part of the global commons, but even environmental activism has few takers outside the intellectual retinue of the greats who wanted little more than to give back the Earth to earthlings. Religious charlatans rule the eternal roost, with anti-blasphemy laws occasionally weaponising vested political and social interests that wish to rule civic choices by frightening dissenters off the common path. It is no wonder that the Einsteinian desire to see the world anew is blinded by the union of secular power and religious orthodoxy. It is dangerous to think in these times.

Yet, even as every year passes, this dreadful impasse in human history will pass. People will fall in love, flowers will bloom, children will be born, they too will love, their children will be born to run wild over the scorched Earth in search of their paths back to themselves, poems will be written, plays will be staged, novels will be written and columns will be read.

In that spirit, Happy New Year!

The writer is Principal Research Fellow of the Cosmos Foundation. He may be reached at epaaropaar@gmail.com