Energy can’t be created or destroyed.
We release energy and logically it can only transform.
Let’s say that I’m standing in a room. I stay there for a while and then get out. What happens with the energy I released into the room when I leave it? How does it transform?
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Without getting too nano-scale, let’s say the act of entering or leaving a room means you have to push air out of your way. You are taking a very small part of the kinetic energy used to move your body and transferring it to the air. Once you stop moving, that airborne energy slowly dissipates throughout the air in the room in ever smaller perturbations like ripples on a pond. Eventually all the energy you transferred to the air will be either lost to friction (creating heat) or absorbed by other materials, possibly being converted back to a form of mechanical energy (call it motion). Ever walked quickly past a desk and had some papers rustle a bit? That’s what’s happening.
When you or any other biological entity dies, some of your component molecules are disassembled and some chemical reactions occur. Parts of you will change state, going from (semi)solid to liquid and maybe on to gas. Some of these reactions can happen relatively quickly, some take decades. Some molecules like water are very stable and last millions of years. Your coffee this morning contained water molecules once drank then peed out by dinosaurs.
I shouldn’t limit this to biological entities, chemical reactions happen to non-biologicals as well. Seawater is slightly alkaline at pH 8.1, acid rain can be highly acidic at 4.5 or lower. Metals and minerals in both environments can be affected.
Seeing the world around you as a series of interacting energy systems can be quite beautiful at times.
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