The System as a Snowball

"Is the system so big it's like a snowball that can't be broken apart?" asked a friend works in healthcare. The question was borne of the frustration of watching hundreds of hours spent trying to appease a spoiled client.

Fortunately, I know something about snowballs.

Yes, the system is so big it's like a snowball, and current national leadership is pushing that ball over the top of a very large hill. As it crests the hill and rolls down it will pick up momentum and mass. It will grow.

Can it be broken apart? A snowball can be small enough to fit in a hand or it can be large enough to be the base of a snowman, and be too large to lift or even move. Yet, a snowball is still just a bunch of flakes packed together. Some stick together more than others. Some are easier to change.

You don't have to lift the whole ball to affect it,or even to break it apart. You can dig into it. You can carve off part of it. You can pack in fresh snow to patch it together. You can affect a snowball.

Ice balls, however, are not only hard, they tend to be one-piece masses of frozen water. Snowballs can be icy, but they are still a conglomeration of smaller entities packed together. Ice balls have been so changed that they are no longer small entities packed together. Those small entities have changed states and become one large mass that can not be easily affected. It has not only a hard shell, but is hard clear through.

Right now, the system is a snowball, it can be reshaped, it can be broken apart, it can be salvaged and still be useful. We'd better get to it though, because the heat is coming, followed by a big freeze that may well change the state of the whole system.