Finding Chaos

The cracks reach out in every direction.

The sun has just barely crested the mountains to the east. The first rays of sunshine break through the silent cold and we welcome them with frozen outstretched hands. Mama Bear and I are slowly walking across the flat expanse of a dry lakebed. The dogs have scattered at around us. They act almost confused by the lack of things. Just a bunch of dried-up mud spanning out before us.

Upon arrival, I was immediately fascinated by the mud. And now, given some time as we slowly saunter across the playa, I try to follow one crack. Follow it to find if it terminates, to see if there is any pattern or obvious reason that the lakebed cracks this way. I start with what is at my feet and slowly move forward. Every 3-4 inches there is a split. I try to choose the direction that allows me to more or less continue the way we are walking. It’s quickly obvious that it is not easy to pick the right direction. Each crack starts and ends almost continuously meaning that it doesn’t start or end. Each line goes around a small patch of mud creating a tiny island. It then tees, goes left and right or up and down to form another island.

It dawns on me that each tiny island is separated from all of the others but also connected by the cracks that created it. None of the patches are the same, but they are all similar. Squarish with rounded corners about 3-5 inches square. My wandering does nothing more than create more questions. What determines where the crack splits? Why is that one so much deeper than the other? Given how uniform this lakebed seems, why aren’t they more similar? Could we recreate a uniform enough situation that they would crack the same? Or is water so random that there is no possibility of controlling how it dries?

I almost trip over myself as the cracks lead one way and then the other. The yellow hue of the dawn light stretches out and I stop to see if not moving allows me to better follow these cracks that I am trying to force to lead me somewhere but lead me to almost falling down. It doesn’t help. The cracks simply fade out into the distance. No end that I can see or comprehend. Beautifully odd, completely separated, but ultimately connected.

And very much like a religious person finding god in everything, I see chaos stretch out toward the eternities.

The Universe has no Intention

We weren’t meant to live this way.

I deserve to go on vacation.

Humans were designed to walk, not sit all day.

We are most often offended by that which we perceive to be the intention of others instead of their actual actions. Stoicism would teach us that when we are offended, to simply give the benefit of the doubt that the other person’s intentions were not malicious, but benign. By removing the perceived intentionality of the action, it is much easier for our humanoid brains to forgive and see a reason why maybe that person wasn’t trying to screw us over, it was just a bad deal.

Our modern language is peppered with intentionality. We converse in a way, without even thinking about it, that implies intention to things out of our control. When the offenses come, we try to rationalize the intention. There is a plan. Life has purpose. I’m being tested.

I can understand the desire to put an intentionality to life and its circumstances, but I find it much easier to swallow that there is no intention. The universe doesn’t care. It’s a much better strategy to accept what comes as what is instead of trying to place significance to things that are simply a reaction to a million different forces outside of our control. You’re right, we weren’t meant to live this way as there is no way we were meant to live. We just live. You don’t deserve anything. That would suggest that your output has a guaranteed or intentional result, it doesn’t. And no, we weren’t designed.

The Playa Knows All

I give up.

The cracks do not terminate except that they do in a sequentially interminable repetition. I find no pattern other than the similarity of the repetition that is disturbed by anything that has been dropped or moved onto the playa. Each little chunk of mud is its own island cut off from the rest by the cracks formed as it shrunk while drying. Each island is connected to every other island by the cracks emanating in every direction. I can’t help but feel there is something deep there, but it’s just dried mud on an old lakebed reacting to natural forces.

It’s chaos.

Seek Chaos. Embrace Discomfort.