An Orderly Chaos

Tales of the Velvet Rock : IV

 

 

 

 

In large families, Christmas may sometimes resemble chaos, especially when all the children decide to visit with their families that year. But when its over, the house is still there, the TV still works and nobody killed the cat. It implies that we sometimes don't understand the experience of chaos and perhaps we ought to take another look at it.

 

Recent studies in the theories of chaos did the usual academic snobbishness in stating the obvious. But an examination of the usage of the term, chaos, over time reveals a far greater insight into the nature of large numbers. The creation account mentions chaos. That may surprise some. You mean it wasn't like there was nothing in the beginning? So what was the nature of the start of life?

 

Elsewhere the term chaos magic is a concept in the studies of the occult which ends with a large fireworks factory lighting up the sky ( and the neighborhood ) with man made stars. But I suspect the term carries a stigma with it for another sudden and peculiar reason.

 

In our social relations we come to rest on the familiar and the norm as hallmarks of a secure base of survival and understanding. This is sometimes upset by a proposal to build a ten storey building in the neighborhood or the location of a military base or the city council's approval for a nude beach. It upsets us because it changes the order of things but and it ought to be declared unequivocally that this does not cause chaos. But it expresses itself in other forms.

 

On occasion we seem to do the most weird of things. Leaving the ladle in the pot roast, forgetting where we parked the car, reading about Lady Gaga's diet. It leaves a doubt, maybe anxiety ... suspicion even, that all is not well. But that is uncertainty. It's not chaos.

 

Chaos is finding out that grandpa uses eye lotion on his arse and says it prevents anal retention, the chief culprit for causing the sensation of chaos. But a quick check on the internet will reveal that eye lotions use a mild form of boric acid that is a powerful antiseptic. Phew!

 

So ... if there is no chaos then ... then ... it must mean ... that ... that ... we are ...ahem ... normal. Maybe better than normal?