If I’m ever going to be bilingual, and it’s a semi-goal, my second language will be Spanish. I spent formative years in Chula Vista, where my exposure was so consistent that I could read it at an elementary level, and I even dreamt in it a few times. I bought the Rosetta Stone program some years ago, and I’m lightly reviewing it now.

Recently I scanned a lesson that had pictures showing the correct and incorrect ways to do things. There were scenes depicting people trying to cook with repair tools, study in trees, sweep with the broom upside down. I noticed something that’s true in all languages but only obvious when learning one. There was one correct way and a lot of incorrect ways. The definite article is used when the picture is right and the indefinite article when the activity is wrong.

Yes, of course: the correct manner; an incorrect manner. I never noticed that before.

In fact, as elegant as the simple exaggeration is – one right way and an infinite number of wrong ways – the truth is more like this: there are a few correct ways of addressing an issue and a remarkable number of incorrect ways.

Now that’s obvious. And when I think about it, I realize that, given the greater number of ways for something to not be right, it’s just a matter of time before wrong swamps right. The probability of incorrectness is so much higher it just needs time to demonstrate.

There aren’t many ways to shape damp sand so it makes a castle, compared to all the ways the same sand can be lumped together without plan and design. The correct way has low entropy; an incorrect way has high entropy. It’s obvious why entropy always tends to increase.

In fact, viewed this way, at first it seems a miracle that anything is correct. How is it that we can all walk and feed ourselves and build? Until I step back and consider how far and widely selection has proceeded. How many incorrect ways it explored, and killed, to get us here.