cannot be created or destroyed

Interesting facts about physics: matter, energy and momentum are all conserved. This means that they cannot be created or destroyed, only changed. For example, a quarter in the fist of an insubordinate juvenile atop a highway overpass has a certain amount of potential energy (PE=MGH). When the insubordinate decides to ruin your day by dropping the quarter onto your windshield, it will reach your car with a certain amount of kinetic energy (KE=MV^2). The amount of potential energy is directly proportional to the kinetic energy (KE=PE or MGH=MV^2). The kinetic energy then turns into heat energy upon impact with your windshield and then that heat energy disperses (not disappears) into the atmosphere. It never disappears.
Yes, the scientific principles that govern reality are just as frugal and recycle-minded we are.
Interesting fact about humans: experiences are conserved. Everything you experience is the consequence of a long series of experiences that have happened before. The world works like an endless series of dominoes or the neck of a giant hourglass where we are pushed through by the weight of all that is behind us. It is impossible to destroy or create what has already happened or what is yet to happen.
Which brings me back to the topic of insubordinate juveniles.
They are the perfect example of social conservation. At thirteen I decided to devote a substantial chunk of my time to juvenile insubordination. After school most days I ran wild in the streets of the small town I grew up in. I skateboarded where I was told not to, I made out with girls who were supposed to be at cheer practice in public parks while I was supposed to be at the library and a handful of times, before I started listening to straight edge hardcore, I smoked weed under a bridge where homeless people slept and little kids dropped coins practicing for their teenage years.
I smoked with the same three kids every time.
Interesting facts about the three kids I smoked weed with under the bridge: one is now dead due to an overdose of Oxycontin, one went mad after a misjudging the potency of the New Testament and hallucinogens, and one I lost contact with after his second stay at a juvenile detention center in San Diego. Their experience under the bridge was conserved. It was not created or destroyed; it was confined to one form. Like water in a plastic bottle, their contact with reality was limited to one medium. Their existence may have been limited and finite but it did not end with them. It took on the form of urban legend and inspiration for this blog (cheers).
For me, my exposure to the world of weed turned into skateboarding directly into a bored small town cop who wrote me a $200 ticket that my mother forced me contest or pay (inadvertently changing the form). The contesting of the ticket inspired in me a legitimate and intelligent disdain for authority through which I identified with politically charged music and subcultures. That disdain motivated me to loudly articulate my frustrations in hardcore bands and through community activism. … and the list streams out into my life story (quaint, I know). My water bottle was busted open across the sidewalk, was evaporated into the atmosphere and turned into a storm cloud somewhere over the Midwest.
Historically we can trace the dominoes falling on top of us from the dominoes that fell before us. Dependence on a finite recourse for our energy led us into Iraq. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand led us into the Cold War. Dungeons and Dragons led us to World of Warcraft. Scientifically, we can calculate the velocity of dominos falling. A sonic boom is the conversion of kinetic energy into sound energy. Smoke and ash are the results of heat energy converting cannabis back into carbon. If we combine them, perhaps we can calculate how the quarter dropped in youth can shatter the windshield of adulthood.

(images stolen from Denis Darzacq http://denis.darzacq.revue.com/)