What Being a Gen Chem Tutor Has Taught Me About Life

Let's get phili-sophical, 'sophical!  I wrote this a while ago, and a bunch of my friends said they'd like to see it immortalized or at least archived in my blog.  So I give you my argument for why life should run like general chemistry:



(Written June 5th, 2011 at 12:12 AM)

Here's where I'm at, sitting on my couch at midnight, wishing there was some predictability to life outside of the fact that I'm going to die at some point.  I wish existence really worked just like general chemistry.

In gen chem, there are rules with few exceptions, and those exceptions have their own rules that they adhere to.  Reactions either happen or they don't; even the ones that don't happen will still occur, albeit slowly.  The point is that reactants go in, and depending what they are, set products will come out.

Compounds are soluble or insoluble, and even the semi-soluble have constants that one can use to predict to what degree that substance will dissolve in another.

Reactions that occur take so much energy to start, give off just so much energy when they finish, and it's a measured quantity.  Nothing uses more than it has to, nothing gives more than it needs to, and nothing takes advantage of the other.  Equilibrium, you see, is always restored.

Everything about chemistry is mostly black and white, and even the grey areas have their own defined limits.  Sure, we can only get so far as the quark, but the point is that we're AWARE that all of these little pieces interact in a certain way to form larger wholes, create complex beings, to form ourselves even.

I wish life was like that.  I wish I could see a situation and ascertain what the hell is going to happen just based on the structure of things, the way the light catches someone's eye, the way they smile.  I wish the products of the general chemistry of our lives made our actions more black and white, instead of grey without boundaries.  Wouldn't love be great, then?  To know if you're doing something right?  To be 100% certain that under the right conditions, a certain action will yield a specific response from someone else?  To never require that outside confirmation from a friend or a lover that you are doing the right thing?

But I don't know if that would really matter.  Our lives revolve around chaos; it excites us, gives us meaning.  Even our cells are propelled by the random motion of water molecules, and somehow order maintains itself.  So maybe our lives are chaotic, and it's our job to seek order within them.  Maybe that's why we love.  Maybe that's why we're so damn set on finding the one man, one woman, one being who we want to spend our lives with, because when we do find that person, we form a bond.  Suddenly, our seemingly random interactions of buffeting from one body to another has spontaneously formed a structure, a foundation.

Some bonds are weak, others are strong, but the point is that it creates something.  Since the dawn of man, we've always wanted to make anything we can: art, music, technology...but we always want something new, something revolutionary. Mankind has striven to accomplish what appears to be miracle-working, to craft an object, technique, emotion out of seemingly nothing.  As a species, we've continued to write a how-to guide to our very existence, and new chapters are added every day to this never-ending manuscript with fresh material.

Nevertheless, look at what we pursue for most of our lives.  Yes, we long to mold our relationships into something we could call love, an experience that is completely novel to us, entirely new, but what we're seeking is ancient.  What we strive for is cliched, over-done, yet we still cling to its possibility like the child unwilling to give up a security blanket.

Maybe that's what it is.  This journey, this quest for the one person complimentary to ourselves, is a security blanket.  Personally, I like mine...I just wish I could know what I'm supposed to use it for.  I can hold this proverbial piece of fabric, but what to do with it?  Do I make a piece of clothing?  A tent to shelter myself?  A weapon to strangle doubt from my conscious?

Or do I simply use it to keep myself warm, to fuel my internal chemistry while I wait for that one reaction that proceeds so slowly to finally reach its energy of activation?

Until next time, dweebs <3