The children of entropy (Wabi-sabi)

Things fall apart.

Stability is an illusion--at least the form of stability worshiped in the western world.

Things fall apart because the universe tends to stability. If this were not so we'd have no need for heaven, for funerals, for crumple zones on cars.
 

The concrete ship off Sunset Beach. 

Technology (at least the electronic sort) weaves fantasies of a world without entropy. Everything is so orderly, so binary, so safe.

The natural world is a lot of things, but it will never be safe. Things eventually fall apart.
Many of us do not know what we want, but I can tell you what sells. Illusions of safety.

***

The sun provides the energy to allow some living thing to put things back together again, for the time being, until they fall apart again. Those of us who cannot do that eat those that can (or ate something that ate something that can).

Many cultures share these stories of birth, death, and rebirth.To know biology, you must tell all three parts of the story. Birth. Death. Rebirth.


The sun provides the energy to "push" the pieces back together again--trees are made up (mostly) of pieces pulled out of thin air. We know this (even if we don't believe it).

From our garden, to be returned to our garden,
as we share stories at dusk.

The sun pushes water back into the sky, back up into the mountain creeks; it comes back down as the ran that rusts your child's bicycle, as the iron slides back into its more stable state.

The sun provides the energy that allows masses of air to be pushed, sometimes with enough force to reduce our homes to rubble, which we will rebuild, using the energy released as we convert our food back into (mostly) air.

Rubble is more stable than homes.
Rust is more stable than iron.
A corpse is more stable than the you you think you are.
And stability will, in the long run, win.

Teach your children the truth--they will be happier for this.