Order and Chaos

Sometimes I think that my life can be simplified down to the basic goal of trying to find order within the chaos. I'm one who believes that you need a certain amount of one to define the other, so I guess that could partially explain my tendency to attempt to do far too many things at once; to create chaos to order. Or maybe I just crave it because our bodies are made to function in many ways simultaneously.

My son and I were reading this amazing book that he got for Christmas about the human body and all of the systems (and their intricacies) that make our bodies function every second of every minute of every day....and it illustrated for me the greatest example of order ... and chaos, too -- my mind struggles to fully grasp the scale of ordered chaos at work right now making it possible for me to type this.

My sister and I just finished watching the box-set of My So-Called Life ... which has brought back so many memories of being 16 and relating so much to the introverted Angela Chase... While I was perhaps more extroverted than she was, I relate/d to the depths of her analyzation of the happenings in one's life.

I also recall a time, when I was even younger, that I became conscious of the fact that my uncle was 35 and from that point I sort of considered all adults to be 35 years old. When I think about the fact that I am now in my thirties I start to understand the feeling of being differently. My Grampa, at 98, simultaneously marveled how he could have lived so long on this earth and how quickly his days had passed. I understand this in my heart now in a way I didn't used to understand it in my brain. It is how, at 32, I can still feel so similar to my memory of being 16. It is the way in which I still feel so young when I am now what I used to consider old. I realize that I am talking about the essence of things. I am fascinated by the ways in which the essence of something interacts and intersects with the practicality of it.

This week I have begun the process of designing again: pulling the essences of ideas down out of the lofty spaces in my brain and working through details to make them practical. Attempting to create order from so-called chaos. Taking inspiration from my so-called life ... It is the practice of bringing these miscellaneous elements together that fuels me and allows me to find meaning in my work.