Requiem for Reality

Chaos...what does that even mean? Does it mean that we should just live all willy nilly.

Here's the thing, the reason why I like chaos a little more than planning and controlling everything is because, sure planning works out better in the end most of the time, but sometimes it doesn't. No matter what you do, sometimes it just doesn't.

You can spend thousands of hours to plan out 24 of them, and in the meantime you have already wasted a thousand. I'm not advocating jumping head first into everything, but I am also not saying that I believe everything has to be a long drawn out process. Either do it or don't. I used to think about it like sand.

Picture your hand full of sand. Each grain of sand is time. No matter what you do the sand will slip through your fingers, out of the sides...you can't hold on to it no matter how hard you try. Even though you know you should, because you want more sand, and you want it all to yourself, the tighter you hold, the more seeps through. Of course realistically you will reach a point when there is just enough that it all does just stay in your hand. That is yours. That is your time. But think about it....really try to imagine it...the best way to keep the most time, is to just let go. Literally if you hold your hand flat and don't squeeze it then more sand will stay in your hand.

Life is a lot like that to me. We can try to squeeze everything out of every second we have together or we can just enjoy every second we have. An ex and I went though this when I was leaving the USAF. We fought and bickered for hours and hours, almost until it was time for me to go. And it hit me, why argue about time, when we could just enjoy it?

Brass tax, you will never have this moment again. This second is gone...and so is this one. It will never ever ever ever come back. You can't get a do over. You can't stop it. It is inevitable. You think that if you just stop now, and just plan for the future then you won't be hurt by the decisions you make now? The funny thing about life is that it's not planning anything out. Or maybe it is.

There are two thoughts that I ponder when I think about this.

1: Fate

2: Chaos

In the idea of fate, or that it's all planned out already I think...wow so what difference does it even make if I make a decision? In the end it will be what it will be. For this reason I think I live with no regrets. See I don't buy into fate, I hate the idea that we have no control over our future, and our decisions are nothing more than a child screaming into the void of nothing. But at the same time I don't have regrets because I am who I am BECAUSE of what I've already done. Life may have something in store for my destiny. It may have an end result similar to a chess game on a computer. With one piece moved the computer can calculate what move will likely be next, until the very end. That is possible.

In the idea of Chaos I think about how certainly the things I do effect someone, that effects someone else, and so on and so forth, but in the end things just happen because something happened before. No one really knows what is going to happen next, because it hasn't happened. We can calculate formulas and equations because numbers don't change value. People do! I am a creature of habit, but I may flip my coin and decide to do something entirely different. And then what will you say? Will you say that I really did that because fate destined that my coin be heads?

The fact of the matter remains however. In either instance, what ever the case may be, "for better or worse who may know". We can assume we know but never truly know. For we don't have the capabilities of knowing. I mean, assume fate was like a super computer...positioned on top of a structure that was tall enough to over look the entire world. Suppose this computer had a camera that could see everything, and everyone was doing at all times. And suppose it made calculations based on their actions allowing it to know what would happen next, similar to a chess game against Big Blue. You and I would never have the capacity for the knowledge. Nor would you and I ever have access to such knowledge. Therefore we should simply live our lives.

It's great to plan out your future, but don't plan so much that you miss it in it's entirety.