A Lesson in Chaosology, Part 1

Recently I serendipitously came across, which is pretty much the way I discover everything, a biography written by NPR Invisibilia reporter Lulu Miller titled Why Fish Don't Exist. Unexpectedly, it's about a scientist whose main pursuit in life was finding new species of fish and naming them. That's interesting in itself but more so is this quote from the opening pages: "Chaos is the only sure thing in this world. The master that rules us all." Chaos came for Miller's scientist when an earthquake collapsed the shelves holding all of his samples, separating the fish from the labels that named them--in short, making them once again nameless and unknown and sending the ichthyologist (fishologist) back to square one.

Chaos will get all of us, Miller writes:

Chaos will crack them [us] from the outside--with a falling branch, a speeding car, a bullet--or unravel them [us] from the inside, with the mutiny of their very own cells. Chaos will rot your plants and kill your dog and rust your bike. It will decay your most precious memories, topple your favorite cities, wreck any sanctuary you can ever build. It's not if, it's when.

As if we didn't already have enough to keep us awake at night. But it's all in how you look at things, right? If Brian (from Monty Python's Life of Brian) were here, he would be advising us to "always look on the bright side of life." So, is there a bright side, a silver lining to the chaos breathing down all of our necks? Let's find out.

What Is Chaos?

So, to start at the beginning, I should talk about what chaos is. Surprisingly, there are many different versions of it. Here's what comes up with just a quick look:

• In general, "complete disorder and confusion"
• In physics, "behavior so unpredictable as to appear random, owing to great sensitivity to small changes in conditions," also known as the "butterfly effect"
• Also in physics, "the formless matter supposed to have existed before the creation of the universe"
• In Greek mythology, "the first created being, from which came the primeval deities Gaia, Tartarus, Erebus, and Nyx"
• Also in Greek mythology, "the abyss or emptiness that existed before things came into being"
• In philosophy...don't even go there
• In Get Smart, "the international organization of evil" (okay, okay, that was KAOS)

What's So Bad About Chaos?

 

This is an easy question. Restated, why is chaos bad? In a chaotic world, no one knows for sure what the next event in their lives will be. Sure, we have work and play schedules, we make appointments, and we make plans like tomorrow I'm going to the Moondog Cafe for its special Key Lime brunch, and next month I will fly to Asheville for some time off. Still, we can't know for certain in one moment what will happen in the next. Uncertainty plays havoc with us personally in myriad ways (e.g., stock market crashes, sudden illnesses, stepping wrong and twisting an ankle, flash floods, or being flattened by a space toilet dropping from the stratosphere [see Dead Like Me]). Knowing that the unknown lurks everywhere creates anxiety, fear, stress, and discomfort in specific situations and a pervasive feeling of unease (GAD, or general anxiety disorder) day to day.

If you think about it (and there is the key--the only successful way to cope with chaos and uncertainty is to not think about it)...er, but if you do think about it too much, here's what can happen (thank you, DSM-5):  

• Persistent worrying or anxiety about a number of areas that are out of proportion to the impact of the events
• Overthinking plans and solutions to all possible worst-case outcomes
• Perceiving situations and events as threatening, even when they aren’t
• Difficulty handling uncertainty
• Indecisiveness and fear of making the wrong decision
• Inability to set aside or let go of a worry
• Inability to relax, feeling restless, and feeling keyed up or on edge
• Difficulty concentrating, or the feeling that your mind “goes blank”

So, now you know what chaos is and what is bad about it. I should probably stop here because I've already taken up a good portion of your daily reading allotment. (Statista.com tells us that the average per-day time spent reading in the US in 2022 was 15.6 minutes.) I will save what is good about chaos for the next RatBlurt, which will appear as soon as I figure out what that is. I'm not sure what the best way is to search for the above-mentioned silver lining. I could google it, of course, but then I have to read all that material (I only have 15.6 minutes per day after all) and figure out what it means and the stress of that could trigger gadatonia [the sudden onset of mental and physical immobility caused by free-floating, all-encompassing worry]. I have an idea on how I can avoid that. I will let you know if it works.

(Image: Detail from Michelangelo's Last Judgment, Sistine Chapel, circa 1536-41. Public domain.)