The Butterfly Effect...

"Look deeply: every second I am arriving...": I've been thinking about "chaos" this morning. All morning, in fact. I've been struggling to find my way to articulate an understanding of a system that I admit I can only understand through my own perception—a perception that seeks to find concept in the concept-less-ness of that very thing I wish to articulate meaning about. I'm out of my league here...

"I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry...": But I perceive a world of chaos around me, and perceive that that chaos disturbs many people for their need to find definition and order... I am like that too. But the chaos and entropy that swirls around my thoughts about the universe I experience feels comforting. It is my lack of ability to find the words to express my appreciation of that universe that causes me angst...

"I am a mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river...": I know that there are those who look into the abyss and see something that they find great beauty in, that there are those who gaze into the random nature of a system and see pattern where most of us see mess, that there are those who "know" that order exists in all things, in all ways, all at once. I yearn for that certainty. Does the entropy of a system reverse itself if given enough time to move towards chaos? Does the chaos itself have an order all of itself that is beautiful? I suspect yes, and seek to see it. Yet I have no answers today, a lot of questions and a willingness to continue to just listen to the universe and listen for the sound that its found in the the white noise of the distant stars...

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“I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.”

― W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil

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"There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns. If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven't recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can't decipher. what we can't understand we call nonsense. What we can't read we call gibberish.
There is no free will. There are no variables."

― Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor

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“Real love is always chaotic. You lose control; you lose perspective. You lose the ability to protect yourself. The greater the love, the greater the chaos. It’s a given and that’s the secret.”

― Jonathan Carroll, White Apples

(Poetic headings borrowed from the poverty of Thich Nhat Hanh.)