"An equivalent analogy would be that the cytoskeleton is like a slowly-flowing two-dimensional glass, which cannot hold any shear elastic energy indefinitely. However, if fast deformation is imposed, it can manifest a large instantaneous shear modulus. This happens if the imposed deformation rate far exceeds the cytoskeleton remodeling rate, which theoretically should proceed (albeit very slowly) in the direction of relaxing the in-plane shear elastic energy according to the thermodynamic principle of maximum dissipation."