Thoughts

  In July I finally recover from the long Winter of Self Assured Destruction and everything that happens to me deserves to be described, everything I see to be photographed, everything I read to be shared, everything I think to be communicated.

 The weather service posted dire warnings all day.  My phone awoke unbidden with a klaxon ( from the Ancient Greek verb klazō, "I shriek)  and a robotic oracle's voice raising the alarm, retreat to the the basement or an inner wall. Then the air raid siren sounded a tornado warning, a sighting? I sat in the dark in front of the windows with a glass of blood red wine listening to the rain. A Father's Day equinox.  Retirement is not yet a second childhood but a second adolescence,  seeking a path a system of values. I left the beach walking west into the sunset smiling blissfully. I saw a large man crossing the street, coming at me, pushing a baby carriage. I wasn't wearing my glasses, the sun was in my eyes, I never saw his face but he gave me a high-five as we passed each other. I assume it was my friend from the beach, talking on the phone, with his new son. I walked north in the lake at dawn, in about 3-4 feet of water, maybe 8 or 10 yards from where the limes...

You can use the word entropy metaphorically to talk about things other than thermodynamics and information theory. You can think of the explanatory value of the word with the rigor of your definition as inversely analogous to its entropy. A highly rigorous low entropy crystalline definition would be mathematical. There is only one meaning described in a formal system of symbols appropriate for communicating the meaning of the word. It is not metaphorical. A less rigorous medium entropy liquid definition may be less exact but might be more useful metaphorically. The meaning is still bound to its formal meaning but given enough conceptual latitude to be applied to other domains such as culture or society.  A least rigorous maximum entropy gaseous definition would lose all descriptive power no longer bound to its formal meaning, it can mean anything and nothing.