Three Things I Love about Chaos
I have a gift for these times. I can listen, thrive, facilitate, in the face of chaos. I got the gift from my dysfunctional family and my empathy. I learned to operate in the face of internal and external chaos in my pre-teens (maybe sooner). While interruptions, talking over each other, open conflict, and the edge of uncertainty may sweep many off their feet, I know how to stand in the eye of the storm. One can gain clarity and meaning-making through the chaos to the other side.
Some of this is cultural: I’m of Southern-Italian with working-class heritage. We are not conflict averse. If anything, we live for the fireworks and thrive in them. We fear a dull life more than anything else. Yelling is how we show outrage, empathy, and even love. I come from an entrepreneurial, pioneer family that managed (with no formal training), their 45-people business, at our dinner table. Uncertainty was a constant.
In a recent article on the recent revised Cynefin model, Chris Corrigan defines Chaos: “ Chaos exhibits the lack of any meaningful constraints a sense of randomness and crises…In Chaos nothing makes much sense, and all you can do is choose a place to act, apply constraints and quickly sense what comes next. This is what first responders do.” Chaos is part of the circle of life. Here are three things I love about chaos:
- Chaos is honest. There is no chocolate covering sh*t in the midst of chaos. Chaos has a way of filtering the truth. “Alternative Facts” don’t fly in the face of chaos, nor do unfounded “opinions.” The sense of emergency that chaos creates activates our survival lizard-brains. With me or against me. Our alarm systems are awesome bullsh*t detectors.
- Chaos is raw. Because chaos sends most people in tail-spin, many people can’t keep their polite covers and makeshift niceness. My lower class-background will show here. I’ll take a straight-up male chauvinist, over a pretend-feminist any day. Under pressure, most people show their raw selves, what was under the mask. I don’t know you, but I prefer the unmasked version of human beings. At least I know what I’m dealing with. Whether the raw emotion is anger, sadness, digust, or joy, chaos will bring it to the surface.
- Chaos is a filter. If I’m out of alignment with my purpose and doing a bunch of stuff I’m not passionate about, there’s nothing like chaos to wipe away the stuff I don’t need to be paying attention to. Chaos sifts my life activities: it sweeps away things I need to let go of. In their absence, I get clearer about the ones that I’m actually passionate about.
I’m not saying that loving these aspects of chaos makes me love chaos itself. Chaos still is challenging, destabilizing, and frustrating. I, like many, would love to have some certainty to hang on to. When I remember the gifts that chaos brings, I can be grateful for its truth-revealing, sifting qualities that point me in new directions. Then, it’s easier for me to let go of my resentment of unpredictability. I breathe. And I stop being angry at myself, too.
