May I Offer You a Cup of Chaos?

Something interesting came up in therapy.  Yes, I go to therapy, get over it.  If you still hold a stigma against  therapy then I suggest you go immediately.

As I said, something came up in therapy, I was talking a bit about my partner and I.  I noted that I do not mind chaos.  Chaos is easy.  With chaos you can pick one thing out of the eye of a chaotic storm and deal with it.

In the mathematical way they can not even truly define chaos to make it chaotic.  Yes if you google it you will see an animated double pendulum.  watching it is hypnotic, but by using two perfect starts (the pendulum), they are already not making it chaotic.  Thee chaos theory claims  each time it starts you will always get a different response.  Yet we know that not to be true, or else why would people waste money on lottery tickets.  eventually the same result will occur.

When I was a teenager my room was always a mess, there was a certain chaos to it, yet I was always able to find what I needed.  So there was no real chaos to it.

In that house of my formative years, there was a chaos of people.  Any time day or night you could find someone to talk to.  Or two or three people that did not even  live in the house sitting together talking.  This was not odd to me.  I would say hello, or not, and go about whatever I was doing.

Just chaotic people floating around in a chaotic house.

Permit me if you will, (Ive always wanted to use that line!) to say there is no chaos.

Oh yes, I said it.  Now I will scream it so you really grasp the blasphemy of mathematics.

THERE IS NO CHAOS!

Wow, that felt good!

The man who invented Chaos Theory even blew his own theory by giving it a nickname.

The Butterfly Effect.

One small action can cause much larger actions  (or reactions) down the road.

Doesn't sound chaotic to me at all.  Sounds logical.

I woke up thinking about my house.  At the moment it is chaotic, I am the only one here, but it is chaotic.  Books need to be put away, cat puke picked up, a serious mop job, laundry and on and on and on.

While thinking about  my house in its chaotic state I came to the understanding that I know nothing.

Sit with me on this for a moment.  I know nothing.

 I do not know how to mop, even if I mop every day.  I do not know how to raise children, yet I raised five, I do not know what I want to be when I grow up, and I am 48.

This thought first startled me.  I mean whoa!  I know nothing?  My brain began to try and immediately dispel the "I Know Nothing Theory".

Brain: You know how to type
Me:  I was taught yes and my fingers move deftly across they keyboard, yet I still cheat and look down once in a while.
Brain: You know how to make coffee.
Me: Laughing, yeah, ask Mer about that one!
Brain: You know how to drive a car
Me; Most of the time I do not recall even driving, so who is driving the car then?
Brain: You know how to love.
Me;  No, I know that I DO love, I also hurt the people I love, my love is full of defect limitations even I am unaware of it at the time I am making them.

 On it went, as I got out of bed and yes did make coffee, and yes remembered at the last second to put the lid on the machine.

Love and communication and being human is full of flaws and chaos.  A perfect form of chaos that can be cleaned up, swept up, made up, put together.

I can take an example of my current chaos and trace it back to the very moment it began.  It may have been weeks, or years ago. I can trace it.

Knowing there is no true chaos, knowing a small action I made at some random point helped to shape who I am now, means I know nothing.

I know, I know, you are currently screaming inside all the things you do know.  About your job, your life, making pancakes.  Is any of it perfect?  If it is not perfect, than you know nothing.

Please do not strive for perfection.  It is unattainable.  Or at least I think so, I do no know so.

I have been working on loving myself, and others without conditions.  I am learning how to love without expecting it in return.  I am learning how to forgive myself, and keep on loving the people I have hurt, myself included.

These are all learning practices.

To practice, not to master or know fully.

Waking up to realize I know nothing, wast amazing!

Think of all the things there are yet to discover but never really know!

Try today to realize you know nothing.

Look at one small action you do, and really see it, be there with that action.  What does your hand feel when you brush your daughter's hair?

What is your mind thinking when you fill your cup of coffee?  Can you hear it splash?

What is getting dressed like?  Are you in a hurry?  Too much of a hurry to take a tiny moment to appreciate the material on your skin?

I think of a day where I have to do mundane things, looking at all of it as a moment in time that wont repeat itself exactly.

There are no small actions.

I will mop, but I will never exactly repeat the action, even if I do it every day.  There will always be a bit of chaos in it.  How remarkable that we humans get to do these tasks and see them as different and chaotic every single time we repeat them?

 How cool is it that we are the ones that know nothing of ourselves or our world that we created?

What an amazing chance to see the world around us.  There is no task too small for us not to take notice of it, feel it, think about it, and even appreciate it!

Try it!  Do not take my word for it.

I know nothing, and that is awesome!