Comparison

Just a little something I thought up at swim practice and churned out in about a half hour.


Everybody needs it: down time. Some people take naps, some play sports—I lose myself in my own imagination. Whether it is by writing, by strategizing unreal military conflicts, or simply by daydreaming, my place of complete solace is within the limitless corridors of my mind. However, in given circumstances, certain methods are more preferable than others.

Have you ever studied the spontaneity of chemical reactions? In a given circumstance, a spontaneous reaction—one that happens of its own accord and continues to completion on its own—is usually one that releases energy. It takes the components from a state of higher energy to one of lower energy. This is rather like release of stress. Activities that people tend to do of their own accord and complete are those that take them from a higher level of stress to a lower level.

For me, writing is a stress relieving activity. However, it is like a large number of spontaneous reactions that require activation energy. These reactions, in order to occur, need an input of energy that takes them to a higher level—the activation energy. After this level of energy has been reached, the reaction will take care of the rest on it’s own. It’s like lighting gasoline on fire. A match or a spark is necessary to give it the activation energy, but after that it happens on its own. So it is with writing and my stress level. It relieves stress beautifully, but first it requires me to raise my stress level. I have to plan, ponder, and initiate the habit of writing daily for the process to be of any use. All of these things increase my stress level before the writing’s soothing effect kicks in.

Even so, there is more than one type of spontaneous reaction. The melting of ice into water, for example, requires no activation energy so long as certain conditions (namely, having the temperature about freezing) are met. Something similar to that is a recent opportunity I have been given. Now, it is completely nerdy and would not appeal to many. However, being an irredeemable nerd, I snatched it up. Certain friends of mine, all of them science fiction writers, have challenged the genre of fantasy to a battle. Two other fantasy writers and I have been constructing the armies, planning strategies, and devising ways around inevitable science fiction advantages. In the end, it is an utterly pointless endeavor. But it relieves my stress spontaneously, and does not raise my stress level in the least simply because it is so pointless. If the pointless condition were not met—say we had money riding on the outcome—the stress release would not come so easily.

The simplest form of spontaneous reactions is the type that occurs no matter the circumstances, like radioactive decay. Nothing can stop it; it just happens. That is my chemical equivalent of daydreaming. No one can put restrictions on my mental wanderings, and I slip in and out of them with ease. They do not have the immense, immediate impact on my stress level (radiation is a slow process), but it takes it away a piece at a time, keeping me sane.

Though I can’t say that my relating chemistry and stress relief says much for my sanity.