We live in a world filled with chaos.
Order is something that we and nature make.
What is chaos?
At their roots, most religions, if not all, begin with chaos and order fighting it out.
For the Greeks, it was literally a god named "Chaos" or "Khaos."
The Dine (Navajo)? Prior to the creation of the four worlds, there was Chaos.
Ancient Egyptians? "Before the world existed, there was Nun, the chaotic waters of the void, an infinite expanse of darkness and primordial waters." (World History Edu, Egyptian Mythology: How the world was created.)
Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Ba'hai)? There is a beginning and there is the God. The God creates order.
If we shift over to science, we have Newton and the second law of thermodynamics which describes "entropy."
"Entropy is a measure of the disorder of a system. Entropy also describes how much energy is not available to do work. The more disordered a system and higher the entropy, the less of a system's energy is available to do work." (Openstax)
What is order?
We are order.
The plants and animals that surround us are order.
We create order through our physical and mental efforts.
One way to define a business is by discussing creating order (the business) our of order.
In my business (writing and publishing), order is taking random ideas and words and creating a story from them. We create order (the story) out of chaos (the ideas and words.)
Every system, including ourselves, is artificial in this universe.
This artifice will eventually fall apart.
Every single time we establish order – in our bodies, our homes, our pets, our vehicles – chaos grabs hold and we're in the middle of trying to maintain our physical selves, hire repair people or become a DIYer, take our pets to the vet, and have our favorite mechanics.
Every system falls apart to be reformed as something new or even something the same.
This is the nature of our universe.
We are currently living in a time of chaos.
In the simplest description, climate change is chaos from a previously ordered system.
Our monetary system no longer on the gold standard. This means that everything we are taught about the economy isn't a factor any more. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is the new theory of how the economy actually works. While imperfect, the theory better defines what is actually going on in our economy. What is MMT and where is it now?
Covid-19 creates chaos to every system in our bodies.
Democracy, which seemed so stable, hangs in the balance all over the entire world including Poland, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Netherlands, France, Ukraine, the Middle East, and so many other countries, as well as in the Global South in where wars encompass much of Northern Africa.
The unwinding of modern colonialism and the Commonwealth is reeking havoc on countries around the world.
Every ordered system is being squeezed by chaos.
How can you survive the chaos of this time?
The first thing to realize is that this is the nature of the universe. Thus, the world, your family, countries, and every system has been torn apart by chaos before.
The second thing to realize is that chaos provides us a chance to make things better. In the US, we are literally formed upon the idea that chaos exists, so we're ever striving to create a better system (order.)
Finally, times of chaos are the very best times to define what you believe and hold onto it tightly. Every system of religion is about helping you find order in the chaos. Every philosophy is about finding intellectual order in the chaos. Most of scientific inquiry is about finding the order in the chaos.
What do you believe in? What helps you define order for yourself?
What order are you willing to fight for? Nature? Democracy? Health? Intellectualism?
These are the questions we all need to be asking now.
This time of chaos will end. It always does. The forces that fight for order are strong and pervasive. What order are you hoping to find when this is all over?
This is what I'm thinking about today.
