Reverse Entropy - My Work Principle
If I had to summarize my guiding approach to work and life into one phrase, it would be: Reverse Entropy.
Entropy is decay, disorder, dissipation. By the second law of thermodynamics, entropy increases in closed systems. But living organisms, including humans, are half-open systems, constantly exchanging matter, energy, and information with the external world. By opening up space and paying attention, we can reverse entropy in ourselves. We could say that Life is Anti-Entropy. This endeavor unfolds across three primary domains of our existence:
Bio-entropy: illness & aging → health & youth
Info-entropy: distraction & noise → clarity & significance
Psycho-entropy: depression & anxiety → love & peace
1. Reversing Bio-Entropy: From Decay to Vitality
The body stiffens and withers — unless we move, breathe, and expand. We need physical space: sky, wind, motion.
Yoga and Qigong offer profound systems for reversing biological decay. They work with vital energy — Qi (in Qigong) or Prana (in Yoga) — the subtle medium between mind and body. This energy concentrates in energy centers (Dantian/Chakras) and flows through meridians. The three primary centers align:
Upper Dantian ~ Agnya Chakra (between the eyes)
Middle Dantian ~ Heart Chakra (center of chest)
Lower Dantian ~ Swadisthan Chakra (below navel)
The abundance of this vital energy is believed to slow bodily decay and promote healing - a practice less of metaphysical speculation and more of metabolic art.
Methods: Give attention to body, breath, food, and sleep. Practice yoga or qigong regularly, and bring mindfulness into walking, eating, and preferably all activities.
2. Reversing Info-Entropy: From Noise to Meaning
Digital life bombards us with fragments. Scrolling and accumulating are not understanding. We need cognitive space to organize information meaningfully.
Consider the DIKW pyramid: Data → Information → Knowledge → Wisdom. This represents an axis of increasing meaning and decreasing noise.
LLMs can assist in reducing info-entropy by organizing, summarizing, and connecting ideas. What’s fascinating is that the mechanism they use is literally called “attention” in their transformer architecture. It’s no coincidence that the same principle applies to both human and AI.
Yet human attention remains irreplaceable for deep and creative understanding. The word “intelligence” derives from Latin “intelligere” (to read between): perceiving implicit order within explicit form.
Methods: Leverage AI tools for information management, but apply human attention in deep reading, thinking, and writing.
3. Reversing Psycho-Entropy: From Anxiety to Peace
Carl Jung first articulated “psychic entropy” in 1928, describing it as disorder in psychological systems. Later, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi expanded this concept:
“Negative emotions like sadness, fear, anxiety, or boredom produce ‘psychic entropy’ in the mind, that is, a state in which we cannot use attention effectively to deal with external tasks, because we need it to restore an inner subjective order.”
In the converse situation, he states:
“Positive emotions like happiness, strength, or alertness are states of ‘psychic negentropy’ because we don’t need attention to ruminate and feel sorry for ourselves, and psychic energy can flow freely into whatever thought or task we choose to invest it in … therefore intentions, goals, and motivations are also manifestations of psychic negentropy. They focus psychic energy, establish priorities, and this create order in the consciousness.”
The solution, then, lies in cultivating psycho-negentropy. This involves expanding our relational space through empathy and fostering positive states through focused intention. One profound practice for expanding our space is simply listening — to people, to nature, to music, to the universe. By listening deeply, we transcend our limited self and embrace a larger world, creating room for positive psycho-energy to flow. Setting clear intentions and goals further directs this energy, establishing order and purpose.
Methods: Set clear intentions and goals, gather people’s attention to your goals, practice self-attention (meditation), active listening, and loving-kindness to oneself, others, and nature.
Conclusion: The Art of Living
Counteracting entropy is a guiding principle of life. This isn’t about rigid control, but cultivating flow, which requires space. When life feels stuck, identify what’s shrinking – physical space for movement, mental space for clarity, or relational space for connection – and intentionally expand it. By consciously applying attention and enlarging these spaces, we overcome entropy not by force, but by allowing new, creative order to emerge, enhancing our well-being and fostering a more meaningful existence.