Chaos or Calm?

A couple weeks back we hosted our first “Love Thy Neighbor” event featuring Jon Jon, a community activist that goes by The Happy Urbanist; to discuss low traffic neighborhoods and helped dispel some of the myths around traffic patterns. One of the group questions to the full house we had was, “Imagine there is a line, and one end you have a librarian, and the other end you have a pirate, which one do you see yourself as?” – and immediately I raised my hand as a pirate. Duh.

I understood what he was asking, and really liked those as visual representations for what we’ll call moving forward as CHAOS and ORDER. This theme and paradox of life has been slapping me in the face a lot recently, and not gently… at all. 

Then just a week later, Sam Harris released his Youtube documentary on Psychedelics. I highly recommend a good condensed historical view with some fun science. They kick it off talking about entropy in closed systems, the very real balance between chaos and order, and of course, how psychedelics affect that, which we will refrain from diving into for now.

But the point is, we are all constantly balancing the line between CHAOS and ORDER. All of us. This guy gets it.

When we’re not balancing it then we can become stuck on one side of the line and need a little shake up, like those big cross fit ropes I see ripped people shaking with all their might.

What’s wild is how quickly I resonated with the idea of being a pirate. I have convinced myself of something that maybe isn’t even true from years of saying “I thrive in chaos”... it’s amazing what we will begin to believe if we keep telling ourselves something over and over.

Maybe it’s not that I thrive in chaos. Maybe it’s that I only know chaos. It’s what I was raised in, and nearly all I’ve known my entire life. And chaos has become comfortable. Controllable even. If I stay in chaos, my vulnerabilities are less likely to be seen or known.

Well, fuck.

You mean, I don’t HAVE to continue to exist in the same patterns that I’ve known my whole life? 

But Jesus, this calm shit sure as hell ain’t feeling good… ahhhh that’s my insecurities and vulnerabilities being exposed? The uncomfortability of having to sit and feel? 

The real kicker is when you wake up just enough to see how the chaos is impacting those around you.

But like most things, swinging that pendulum never works. Life is one big PARADOX requiring balance.

It’s my conditioning within chaos that is also one of my true gifts, hence starting a business, or moving to a foreign country I had never visited…

But as I get older, the less I want it, because I see it eating me alive. And like everything, it needs balance. Moderation.

I love chaos. But I need order.

I love risk. But I need safety.

I love the unknown. But I need some certainty.

So 10 years in with Mad Priest, and we’re finally really asking those questions. How do we balance this? How do we do it well? How do we create order, efficiencies and systems while maintaining a spirit of creativity and wild ideas?

What side of the line are you on? And where could you challenge yourself to induce a little Jack Sparrow into your life, or maybe a bit of Yoda? (Not many Librarians came to mind lol)

As you sip your morning cup and reflect, I’d love to hear what comes to mind.

+Michael