Grief and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

The science of grief and how we do it better

I wish I had a scientific mind. I wish it were easier to understand those things that make the natural universe what it is. Did you know scientists estimate there may be close to 2 million ocean species we’ve yet to discover and classify? That there were sharks on the earth before trees? How about those physicists who theorize and believe the universe is getting bigger, expanding into…something that scientific minds understand much easier than I do.

Curiosity demands humility. It asks us to acknowledge what we do not (yet) know. It often operates at a slower speed than the world around us, so we choose the efficiency of easy answers. Unfortunately, grief comes with no easy answers.

We know that nothing in our world (including us) exists in a vacuum, that each of us are here because of people and resources beyond ourselves. In Sara Imari Walker’s excellent Life As No One Knows It, she skillfully recounts the 19th century efforts that ultimately led to our understanding of the three laws of thermodynamics, all meant to describe the relationship between different forms of energy. The second law seeks to explain entropy, a measure of how disorderly things are, aka, what are the elements and experiences that create and cause chaos in our world?

You and I know the wildly creative ways grief throws us into states of entropy, catapulting us into unforeseen chaos that demands every ounce of effort just to keep our heads above water. Grief tries to talk us into isolating ourselves, and our individual efforts to wrestle grief into submission wear us down and wear us out. Those attempts to reclaim control are like trying to catch fog with your hands, disorganized and fruitless, no matter how hard you try. I’m trying so hard; shouldn’t all this effort give me something to show for it?!?!

The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system will always increase. Put simply, anything or anyone who tries to go at it alone is destined to end up in chaos. In that way, grief is a scientific experiment. Since we know that going at it alone is scientifically guaranteed to make our life harder, then the inverse must be true: being in the hands of another, sharing yourself with someone(s), allowing yourself to crumble and be rebuilt with the help of others is the best way to go about restoring some sense of order in your life.

The mission of my organization, Good Grief, isn’t simply to revisit what has been, but to give “grievers” something other than fog to reach for in those hard moments.

The Nigerian scholar and visual artist Ehime Ora reminds us that, “Your body is not a coffin for pain to be buried in…You gotta resurrect the pain within you and give it a place to live that’s not within your body.” The pain of grief can seem limitless, ever-expanding like the universe, but that revelation of “more space” only creates more space for stars to shine and beauty to emerge.

You cannot speed up the grieving process, but you sure can slow it down. It will not be intellectually conquered, and no amount of distractions will offer the relief you crave.

You’re not “moving on”, but you can move forward. There is life on the other side of what brought you here.