rage, as explained by thermodynamics by Aiden H. '28

Tuesday I had a bad day.

I want to talk about what bad days look like right now, because what I consider a bad day has changed a lot over time. I also want to talk about thermodynamics⁠01 don't worry, the thermo will be high school-level and also not important past analogy purposes because it is one of three (3!) midterms I have on Monday, so it’s been #onmymind.

Most thermodynamic properties are macroscopic, meaning it isn’t about the individual atoms and particles bumping around like other parts of chemistry. Instead, we just say these properties are an average of all the little particles, even if they’re all different–like how the temperature of the air doesn’t mean every single air particle is at that exact temperature; instead, as a whole it’s that specific temperature that we feel.

Both scientifically and emotionally, I am one of these compounds. As a whole, I’m pretty much always fine, but take a snapshot of any random part of me at any given time and the possibilities are endless of what you’re gonna get. I think that’s why Tuesday hit me like a truck (or blimp, or alternative larger vehicle). I think it was relatively bad just because the first month of the semester had been super stable. I’ve gone to class, I’ve gone to concerts and movies, I’ve chugged along doing everything without any noticeable bumps. But under the surface there’s a constant battle about how everything is going. Minute-to-minute I’m debating how I’ll get everything done and what I’ll do next to continue this streak going.

Bad days recently haven’t been about anything actually going wrong, but not going according to the plan I set out. Tuesday was one of these spirals. I wanted to finish my 11.001⁠02 Intro to Urban Design and Developement. the eagle-eyed will notice this is not the original 11.041 I signed up for. project that night so I could work on blogging and research Wednesday/Thursday and then study Friday/Saturday/Sunday for my Monday exams. But then I got major-major-major stuck on the project and had to wait to go to office hours Wednesday, which pushed everything back by ~16 hours. So now I will either lose sleep or be super rushed and stressed like I am right now to get everything done on time, or I will not follow the schedule that I’m pretty sure I need to. Nothing was turned in late, no task was unfulfilled, but because I’ve become predisposed to worry so much about the coming days, I feel behind if I’m not ahead for what’s ahead, y’know? In reality, everything will be done on time and at the end of the week I won’t care or remember how I was feeling.

Yet despite the enjoyment of all the tasks, I can’t like anything with this level of worrying and meticulous planning.

In thermo, something’s “free energy” is related to its enthalpy (analogous to total heat content), temperature, and entropy (disorder or inability to do work). It is shown in the following equation that haunts high schoolers worldwide:

If ΔG is negative, a reaction is spontaneous because it doesn’t need energy to happen, and vice versa. Sometimes you want ΔG to be negative because you want something to spontaneously happen, but that doesn’t really work with this analogy. So imagine I’m a bomb, and if I set off it will be general chaos.⁠03 note: not chemistry/physics chaos, but just like traditional bad vibes If my ΔG is negative, I’m known to spontaneously freak out.

My emotional free energy can be modeled with a similar function:

ΔG(ratification) = ΔH(appiness) – T(ime)*ΔS(tress)

It doesn’t matter how well I’m doing or how much enjoyment I get from my work, I can’t feel any gratification from it unless it works with where I’m at. There will always be a point at which no matter the happiness I earn, the stress matters more. I’m always balancing this line.

Well, there are only two options,⁠04 Actually 3, because if ΔG=0 then it's equilibrium, but never mind that right? Spontaneous or not. What levels of happiness and stress lead to what outcomes? How can I change my parameters to ensure I get what I want? The following kind of chart is common to relate all the variables for the traditional equation:

The goal is to always have something provide no stress or even remove it (ΔS<0) and have it “spark joy” (ΔH>0). Realistically (in chemistry and in terms of my life), what we’re dealing with is trying to balance something that is happy but stressful (top right), or infuriating but fine (bottom left). You can’t force a system to do something that the constraints can’t match. If it’s too stressful, it just will never work. This is what I’ve been feeling.

I’ve been going to bed with a high heart rate and blood pressure, feeling the weight of everything I have to do, no longer able to put it off as I think about what I have to do tomorrow. My chest beats with a fury at nothing but minor inconveniences, as I sulk around my dorm looking for reasons to get mad. But I’m not really angry. I get angry at other things, so what is this new emotion? Anger is to things, anger is at things. Anger matters. This doesn’t to me, not in the same way. I get angry at injustice, at war and hate, at violence and close-mindedness. Anger inspires, this just eats away. It’s rage merely at the thought of extended stress.

It’s an evil kind of stress, one with the heat of anger but the inconsistency, the volatility of any other mood swing. It’s all the more carnivorous, eating at sanity. Sometimes I get super meta in my head and think about how I am just an animal, a beast with my hunched back making grunting noises over my sticks and rocks (IPad) over daily tasks (psets). An animal just wants to run around and eat and sleep, not lie awake at night thinking about what it has to do tomorrow to stay alive.

Normal stress is a state of frenzy, this is a state of unfounded clarity–on my emotions, on everything around me. I jump to conclusions I probably don’t mean but I guess I somehow have to deep down, if I thought it. It’s like how alcohol is truth serum–it takes all this stress to get the truth out of me (though I guess this would be more of a kinetics argument, which isn’t relevant to our thermodynamic discussion.)⁠05 I guess it would have to be some michaelis-menten analogy with like stress being an enzyme on the substrate of my emotion and the v_max is how much I could possibly be emotionally vulnerable? but I'm already pushing it with the thermo analogy so

Working towards time management is a positive trait–when it works. When it fails, I’m childish for caring. And then I feel it all even more. I feel rage at my audacity to be so upset at little things, to take everything I have and ruin it spontaneously on a whim, because every little state, every little emotion inside of me, no matter how outweighed, deserves a spot in my emotional brain space. Then I feel it three times over at how easy it is to fix. I want to be angry at things that matter. I want an anger that is only solvable with a real solution, not something that could be fixed with a cookie and a nap. Can it really matter if a $4 purchase is all it takes to change my day? Am I some child who needs to be rewarded for doing anything I don’t want to?

I don’t know. I don’t think Carnot and Clausius got that far in their studies.

Anyway, here’s my angry playlist rn: