Transformation comes out of chaos.
Is this true? I’ve been thinking about it lately. I imagine two different scenarios which inform transformation, whether personally (e.g. health, financial, sense of purpose, search for meaning), or in larger social, cultural and political situations (e.g. wars in Ukraine and Israel-Palestine, full civil rights for women, LGBTQIA, the differently abled, Biracial, Indigenous and People of Color).
The first scenario is the one where for the person or people involved, everything is in good order. There is order, organization, timing, resources, predictability–basically, a homeostasis in all things. If I as an individual am living that short of life where everything is in place, I am NOT looking for transformation. Why would I? Everything is in place. And, if I am a part of a majority of people in a community, city, state or nation where pretty much everything is in order, why would I want things to change? I would only be looking for transformation if all those things begin to dysfunction, to fall apart–or I begin to notice those for whom nothing is in place, and that so disturbs my world that I begin looking for, working for change.
The second scenario is the one that we find after the first one has blown up. Nothing is really in order anymore. Nothing can be predicted or expected. Resources are scarce. Organizations don’t function and order has collapsed. When things are that bad, what we begin to find are pieces of our previous existence that we didn’t even know were there, all along, and from those we begin to rise up.
I know that transformation happens in the second scenario. Human history is full of examples both on the collective as well as the personal level: out of the ashes, human endeavor and creativity arise to build something new, to do better, and maybe for a while, to be better. Clearly, in that sense, chaos is required for transformation to take place.
I’m wondering about the first scenario. While most of my personal world is still in order, can I hear the call coming from those who are already in the ashes? I think (I want to hope) there is that possibility. If there is, I think it may be because compassion comes. Before the chaos.
~Bob Patrick
