Chaos
My experience of working with, and through, chaos as an autistic systems change practitioner.
The chaos of every day
Being autistic I find most unfamiliar situations totally chaotic. I’m not just talking about the life-altering stuff, like starting a new job or moving country. I’m talking about minor undertakings, like going to a new cafe or taking a journey on public transport that I’ve never done before. Although the degrees of unfamiliarity are different, the feeling is the same. I’m untethered, obsessively scanning my environment and receiving all sensory information at the same level (usually maxed out at 10). My body absorbs all of this and revolts. My scalp tingles with unease, my stomach cramps, my shoulders and neck become tense, a migraine sets in. I sweat. It’s an all-round uncomfortable, and almost daily, experience.
This is why patterns are so important to me. They provide a fulfilling reassurance because they help me to navigate chaos. Yet inevitably, when experiencing something for the first time, I haven’t had the chance to gather enough data to identify the patterns within a given experience. So pattern logic fails me when it comes to new experiences.
Troubleshooting chaos
This can make life quite hellish and anxiety inducing, if I’m honest. Yet it has also gifted me something I am only now starting to value. Chaos is my normal, my natural state. Yes it is incredibly stressful, but I experience chaotic situations with such frequency that I have evolved ways of coping that allow me to troubleshoot things in a way that maybe others can’t. Whereas some people feel confronted by chaos, the lack of a clear path or definable outputs chaotic situations provide, I can sit with this familiar discomfort, deeply trusting the process and knowing that solutions will reveal themselves. While acknowledging the stress it causes me, there is also a profound sense of peace for me in the familiarity of chaos.
Zen chaos
This was true when I went to art school where every creative brief was like an invitation to expansive and ill-defined exploration. Where others panicked and clamoured for exemplars so they could ‘picture’ a defined output, I let myself get lost — seeming to meander through research and moving from one haphazard experiment to the next, but it was never in vain. In the end, I always landed exactly where I, or the work, needed to be.
Similarly, in a recent collaborative project the challenge was so immense and complex that the idea of diagnosing the system and distilling our findings into defined outputs felt reductive to me, and a bit absurd if I’m honest. Instead I was convinced what we needed to do was simply immerse ourselves in the chaos, set the wheels in motion with manageable actions and allow the path through the chaos to emerge, leading us to some sort of valuable output. My vagueness was perhaps a little uninspiring and, unsurprisingly, I don’t think my vision for our collaborative process was warmly received.
Gratitude in chaos
In reflecting on this recent collaboration and the notion of chaos in systems change work, I now acknowledge the need to simultaneously value my ability to sit with chaos and discomfort, while acknowledging that this is not possible for everyone. When confronted with intense complexities, time pressure, strained group dynamics and an overload of information, the idea of simply ‘trusting the process’ must seem irresponsible to others. Yet it is an approach that has served me well as I work through the chaos of my every day. In spaces where I have agency and a trusting foundation with collaborators, this is an approach I will continue to lean into and advocate for.
While autism has stolen the gift of ease which many others seemingly take for granted in their daily lives, it has gifted me the ability to sit with chaos, my familiar friend, and flow with it to identify patterns which inspire novel solutions. For that I am grateful.
Interested in knowing more?
This is part of a series that I’m writing following on from my Basecamp journey with School of System Change. I recently published my introduction to this series entitled Unpacking the system of the self alongside Part I about Patterns and Part II about Complexity. Over the coming weeks I’ll explore two more aspects of my autistic self that lend themselves well to systems thinking. Follow and subscribe to keep up-to-date as I dive into these topics:
| inclusivity | sense-making |
You can also click through the image below to access a visual map of this journey.
