Dilution and Concentration

Chemistry has a way of being everything about everything. The old slogan, that dilution is the solution to pollution was an alliteration of words that corrupted the mind of an entire generation - the phrase is not correct. The concepts of concentration and dilution in chemistry are the opposites of each other - to place more or less solute (stuff) into a solution (liquid).

However - let's focus on concentration - an absolute necessity if you want to get something done. To concentrate and blot out the surroundings allows us to focus on ghetting done what has to be done - often with the goods on hand. But to build something requires concentration of effort, and concentrating the raw materials and workman skills onto a single site, in the proper order to finish aspects of a job that must be done in a tiered array. In other words - you can't roof a house before you've poured a foundation and built an structure. The cast of characters needs to be matched to the tasks at hand - though unskilled labor is also very necessary. So concentration requires work, at some level.

Dilution, on the other hand is the natural state for entropy - divide and conquer - scattered disarray and all that. But i suggest that we remember the value of an individual is one and there is no subdivision of that individual that makes it zero, yet keeps it as a full functioning entity. The curve is asymptotic for a reason - it never ever can reach zero on the basis of dilution, because everybody has got to be somewhere when they are left alone. We need to be left alone sometimes to do our work and be able to get it done - especially when our cymbols clang and contrast to others following their flutes. The melting pot concept of society - homogenous amerikanization, just like homogenated milk, leaves us gasping at the disenlightenment of groups enforcing hive activity. We are an orchestra.

Focus is balancing competing forces of dilution and concentration. The quest for knowledge requires application before a topic is learned well enough to move on. In buying into mutualism - thanks Kevin - i would like to build a support network of people willing to coach other people in the pursuit of knowledge - truth. Since truth is relative until observed and absolute thereafter, the quest for truth does not always bring the expected outcome. But in a world where our elite rely on myth to govern reality, seeking illumination and light by searching into voluntary application of learned technique seems to be a better means of bringing people together. Call it apprenticeship, mentoring, coaching or just plain communicating, if we take interest in sharing interest, perhaps we can get a collective effort to fixing a framework that allows us to adjust gears and deal with the collective crush of system overload.

This has been your chemistry lesson of the day. dr. lenny - howdt