Imagining Chaos

There is something about theological and cosmological beliefs that become so deeply entrenched in our way of perceiving the world that it becomes difficult to explain. It is like describing the Sun. It is considered the source of life on Earth due to its distance, size, and emissions but we don’t really think much about it because it is kind of taken for granted as an essential aspect of life. So much so that it becomes strange to imagine life without it. We can regale on its technical traits, but they feel meaningless out of context. It is an inconceivably large hydrogen fusion reactor, but to us it is just a circle of light and heat. It is a star, but we picture stars as the pointed polygons due to their twinkling. It is the center of our system’s gravity, something we can hardly conceive to the point that this is one of the fundamental arguments for flat Earth theory. Gravity just means down, and the Sun is up after all right? While we can feel like we understand our world, trying to explain it to someone who doesn’t innately believe in the same principles becomes a seemingly impossible task that reveals the holes in our knowledge.

This is what it feels like trying to comprehend others’ beliefs of the world whether it is flat Earth, ancient alien, manifestation, astrology, or their god(s). Thus, I am in no way surprised that it can be somewhat difficult to explain Chaos as I understand it. I find that each attempt allows me to investigate the gaps of knowledge that I have when it comes to this concept. I also get to try various “elevator pitches” to succinctly upload the information to another’s mind. One such attempt starts with the hope that they’ve seen the movie “Inception.” In it, the protagonist and his team share dream worlds. There is a whole plot about why, how, and with who, but the shared dream is the only part i need someone to understand. In these shared dreams, they can create and destroy and manipulate the world around them at will. Just by picturing it they can raise skyscrapers, dig and fill oceans, have deep conversations with loved ones or strangers, and even fold the world into a cube with shifted gravity as depicted in one iconic scene.

Keeping that ability in mind let me try and take us back to our beginning. Before each of us come to life, we exist in an ethereal realm of Chaos. Void of any static laws, where everything only exists as it does in the mind, we are effectively omnipotent souls. While we can attempt to interact with others, the strain of competing perceptions and realities and communications is jarring and over time it becomes a nihilistic form of existence. What is there to do when you can do everything with zero resistance? In one Twilight Zone episode, a character dies and gets everything he ever wants and thinks he went to heaven only to find that it is boring when winning every slot machine, having the biggest house, and all the women he could ask for had no challenge or risk. Only then is it revealed that he is in fact in Hell for there is no greater punishment than to be deprived of a true adventure with risks and victories and shared experiences. Similar to one interpretation of the Greek Hades, where people drink from the river Lethe to forget their past lives so they can reincarnate, we choose to be born into the world so that we can share in the wondrous experience of life in Order. Order is easy to explain as it is our perceivable universe. It is everything we consider “real” and what science is capable of testing. While the idea of this strange adventure is alluring, it is easy to overlook the inherent struggle.

During gestation, a body is formed that will be capable of holding a soul. The acts of intelligence are instinctual reflexes from epigenetic behaviors as can be seen in all forms of life. Once we are born into the world, we begin to exist within Order but only with the constraints that our body has allowed us to perceive. The phases of human development are effectively the expressions of discord between a soul used to omnipotence and the necessary restraints of a living vessel. We cry as we first experience suffering in this way, immediately expressing our vulnerability in this arbitrary and uncontrollable experience. It is almost as if we are along for the ride as our body hungers, feels temperature and pressures, needs air and energy, and when we are left alone in this vulnerable state, we feel lost and scared as we do not have any say over when the next encounter will be. Over time we begin to adjust to the patterns of our body and find some semblance of control as the world around us addresses our needs if we cry. In Chaos, things only existed when we imagined them and the stopped existing the moment we were not willing them to be there. So, for the first 8 months or so we have no idea what is going on around us. We see the same figures again and again but do not know why. At this point we begin to realize that things continue to exist even when nobody is aware of them. These are not just the same forms and figures like how one square is the same as another, these are the exact same object. We call this object permanence and from here on we can begin building an understanding of the rules of Order.

From here we begin to understand these rules and how we can interact with things as we learn to move our bodies more intuitively. In time around 3 or 4 years, we even begin to realize that these other people are not just things, but other souls like us with similar feelings and experiences as we break through solipsism. As these abilities get stronger, we can think through problems logically and begin to consider things from another’s perspective. Because Order is so insanely complex, just look at all the fields of science and how most people can’t even comprehend the language used to describe phenomena, it takes us until adolescence until we really start to form our identities as people within our world. We emulate archetypal personas, trying on behaviors and expressions like clothes in a fitting room to rapidly digest these qualities. We realize we have unique thoughts and contributions and test authority in what is for many, the first affirmations of besting others, even adults, intellectually. These qualities of self-empowerment as we attempt to retake our throne of omnipotence is challenged and our behaviors no matter how unique or valid are labeled bluntly as “teenage angst and rebellion.” While this is a natural and absolutely necessary component of social life, for teens it can feel like oppression and imprisonment and for adults, especially their caregivers, it can feel like disrespect for their strenuous efforts and complex navigations to provide a functioning and safe world for them.

This battle between adults and adolescents is so simple it can be frustrating for those who have a more holistic perspective. Teens and young adults are trying to prove their capacity to navigate the world and are bound to fail repeatedly with overconfidence as they run at full sprint into real world brick walls of ethics, laws, and safety. Adults are supposed to shine lights on these obstacles and dangers through education and safe exposure, but we are not supposed to shield them from them entirely by pretending they don’t exist or fabricating some illusory concept and branding their mind with that bias. Some people authentically can’t see the dangers and need some extra protections, and we can do a better job at crafting a world where these things can be more autonomously navigated and a lot of times when young people come up with ideas it is to solve this very issue and instead of acknowledging the critical thinking we reject them for imperfection. Regardless, as you may notice, these years between the first and second decade really begin to distance our place from Chaos and anchor us into Order.

As adults we become more entrenched in the day-to-day life and focus on the long term as we slowly but surely consider the temporal nature of this existence. We begin to face death more seriously, and more often as people we know may begin to die. Whether it is through expected issues as we become more fragile in old age or from accidents to complete criminal tragedies. We face the concept of human evils, and the roles silence, indifference, and abstinence from the otherwise benevolent play in it. Some settle for a simple predictable life of small joys and occasional wonders, some strive to leave a legacy or mark their name into history, and others fight for justice and equality regardless of their status. We feel compulsions from our ancestors through epigenetic instinct, reactions to our environment through physical signals and emotions, logical processing through our understandings and neurology, and quiet gravities of our souls drawn to various aspects of life. Eventually through the expression of an identity formed around these components both controlled and inherited we live until we die.

At this stage we bid farewell to a life no longer ours and our soul disconnects and returns to Chaos sharing in all of the memories of all of our past lives as well as others in a menagerie of experience and minds before our soul leaves behind even that to exist freely as a loose element of omnipotent consciousness. Here the soul exists with absolute freedom of imagination and comfort until the novelty of omnipotence loses its wonder and once again, we find ourselves drawn to a world filled with adventure.

The romanticized perspective and teleological nature of this narrative is not an essential belief for those who feel they resonate with the religious identity of Chaotic Heroism. It is not an empirical truth, as no such thing could exist, nor is it necessarily the only way it may be even if there is some epistemic truth to it. The purpose of this narrative is to give a more holistic perspective to the human experience and how we as beings of extreme variance, have a shared experience and desires to exist as spiritual adventurers. This is how I see the world and how I will illustrate the ethics, beliefs, motivations, and tenets of Chaotic Heroism as I strive to deliver a structure that empowers those of us who wish to take on the mantle as Heroines of our own adventures and fight to make this a better world for every soul eager to play in this wild existence we call life.