November 20, 2007

Chaos theory

I used to think when I was growing up that things would be okay when life just settled down. If I could just get over the rough spot, past the hurdle, I'd find quietness and peace on the other side. Then I could really live my life.
But the passing years have taught me that it's useless to wait or even look forward to that sort of calmness. The chaos is life itself. I've learned to embrace it and let it have it's way with me; miraculously, I'm still standing.
There's only one thing thats certain in life, and that is that life is anything but calm and peaceful and stagnant. Life is constant change. A writer friend of mine put it this way: after so many years of rolling with the punches, it's easy to forget that you are rolling, or that there are punches. Maybe that should actually be our goal.

1 comment:

ms. fits chicago said...

I was actually thinking about you when I was reading Anne Lamott (Traveling Mercies) today when she mentioned that the Dalai Lama once told someone that he believed that "when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born -- and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible."

It seems like life is a whole bunch of cycles -- life and death, over and over -- and, you know, I'm starting to believe it's not so much chaos as it is just everything needing to balance out... and for important things to grow and come into this world, other things need to shift, which means upsetting everything we're used to having "just right" in our lives.