The Other Side of Chaos
Why you should become a nobody.
September was a bitter-sweet month. The months prior had been a rollercoaster of emotions. First, there was the angst of being left behind by my colleagues who completed their coursework in time for graduation. Then my attention turned to more practical concerns when I began searching for a job in July. Although I had been interviewed for many positions by mid-August, only one of the jobs was in league with my qualifications and personal projections.
I was also learning quickly and quite surprisingly that I was underskilled for my preferred roles. Rather than consider me solely for my content marketing and web/social media optimization skills, the recruiters seemed to be looking for a multi-skilled professional with Adobe Suite expertise. I spent many days and nights regretting trifling with the opportunity I had to develop design skills when I interned at a photography studio during my undergraduate studies. By late August, I had grown restless, enough to jump on the first breakthrough that availed itself.
Beaming like a teenager on their first world tour, I bid my boyfriend and the town I called home for my first two years in the United States goodbye and boarded the next flight for Chicago, or so I thought. I had taken a job as a caretaker with a Nigerian family living in Peoria, Illinois, with the intention of leveraging my proximity to the cozy office complexes I curated online as my ideal work environments, to being considered for employment. I fell in love with the kids almost immediately. The youngest who turned one on the day I arrived had an unexplainable effect on me.
She would sleep off after a few minutes of rocking and singing lullabies of the stars shining brightly for her. I also sang of how adorably seraphic she looked with her eyelids pressed together in sleep.
With her sisters, however, I was a little more cautious. Although good natured, the two older girls (6 and 3) tended to express themselves in a manner I sometimes considered insolent. Having grown up in a different culture, I was also careful what I picked up as recalcitrance. I made it through the first week without event, balancing my online job search with housekeeping and caretaking (their parents are physicians whose schedules are in constant flux). I adjusted so quickly; I spent my free time daydreaming about motherhood. I was enthralled. Then reality began to set in.
I was a help. I had lost my agency to my domestic employers. I did what I was told, went where I was sent, had little to no time for what mattered to me. I had willed my agency away for a paltry stipend. Everything within me started to revolt with the dawn of this realization. My sister could tell I was unhappy when we spoke on the phone. Being a mother of two littles herself, she could relate to my disillusionment. “You need to be selfish and make time for yourself” she advised patiently on one such occasions.
I finally made up my mind to leave because I couldn’t get the lady of the house to come to a compromise. She didn’t care for my needs long as hers were met. All I was asking for was a day off to take care of unfinished business at the public library and get a breather out in the town. I had relived the same experience long enough to start feeling like the walls of the house were closing in on me. The day I left; I saw more of the time than I did the six weeks I spent in their abode.
Understanding Chaos and Gaining Mastery Over It
“In its positive guise, chaos is possibility itself, the source of ideas, the mysterious realm of gestation and birth.” — Jordan Peterson
As soon as I settled into familiar surroundings and established a routine again, I started researching, frantically at first, for a better understanding of the social media structures I was seeking visibility in. It is characteristic of me to uninstall all social media apps on my phone whenever life turns ruthless, and I am needing a reset. But not this time. Rather than shrink, I was pushing for more virtual presence. Because I never heard of an unsocial social media manager or digital specialist.
I soon realized how unsophisticated I was in the maneuvering of these platforms. I eagerly logged into my X (formerly Twitter) app this Saturday to listen to one of my many role models, Destiny Ogedegbe, speak on “Dreams to Reality.” At the end of the one hour 30 minutes stimulating talk, I asked the one question that was burning in my heart “how can a bashful young lady with an unhealthy self-concept establish a thriving career?”
He didn’t pretend to be an authority on the subject of course. This is how I knew I was consulting with the right audience. He referred me to Dr. Jordan Peterson who I already held in very high esteem.
I’ve been reading Dr. Peterson’s 12 Rules For Life for two weeks now, and his treatise on pain appeals to me. In it, he shares that the experience of pain is excruciatingly real, it makes a person aware of their Being. Pain also resides in the realm of chaos described generally as the unknown. For someone like me who is constantly trying to control the uncertain by expending limited mental resources on worrying over outcomes I have no control over, the response to chaos is often to run to safety. Safety is illusory.
While order ensures predictability and permanence, an ordered state which remains unchanged for a period would soon become decrepit. Chaos, therefore, is the force needed to morph from a moth into a butterfly. To gain mastery over chaos is to find a navigable spot between order and chaos, what Dr. Peterson calls consciousness. For me this means getting out of my head and into the reality before me so that I can confront uncertainty with a clear mind.
A Way in the Wilderness
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” — Victor Frankl
As a young teenager, I found and read a dystopian novel that changed my worldview in a profound way. It would be the first to introduce me to concepts such as telepathy, time travel and consciousness to me. I was intrigued by the author’s depth and the contents of that book have stayed locked away in some compartment of my mind for these many years.
With the technological leaps we’ve made in the past decade, I started feeling like a relic last year. One of the ways I torture myself is trying to stay abreast of all new developments. This is too much to ask of anyone in the information age. I have long settled for curating information that is relevant to my immediate needs and intellectual curiosities. This has curbed the anxiety I feel about losing control of things when I don’t know everything. To lessen the paranoia of becoming a technology relic, I decided to read a sci-fi book.
I was very specific in my search because I was hoping to reread the same novel from my teenage years. Given that my understanding of language has improved, I wanted to reread it with a new pair of eyes. Although I was unsuccessful, I found a similar book with an oddly interesting origin story.
According to Edward Bulwer Lytton in The Coming Race, there were survivors of the perilous flood which ended the world in Noah’s time. Submerged in the turbulence of this element, these survivors, bolstered by the primordial will to subsist, developed extraordinary human abilities that enabled them best the torrents that infiltrated the caves where they took refuge. The descendants of this race have so far established a superior order in their new subterranean dwelling. This enlightened race, according to Lytton, discovered a material whose essence is the equivalent of the philosopher’s stone, placing them well beyond any technological or intellectual advancements earth dwellers are yet to attain.
The reason for citing this account is not to spark a conspiracy theory, which honestly would contradict my beliefs. This narrative has been used here to illuminate a certain truth about life which sometimes requires a gentle nudging to accept and make peace with. It is necessary to confront these harsh realities because accepting them equips the individual with the right mindset for success.
Proportionate to the vision that weighs on a man’s heart are a succession of chaotic events interspersed throughout his lifetime. The individual’s ability to contain the pain inflicted by the turmoil of their circumstances is what readies them for the responsibilities willfully chosen. Some individuals are ill-prepared for this exchange and succumb under the pressure of such tribulations. This can be likened to the scenario of the flood survivors in The Coming Race.
On the subject of natural selection, Dr. Peterson is clear on the party that engineers the selection — the environment. To survive the natural and contrived turbulences that assail man on his journey to rescuing his dream from the blurry edges of his imagination, he must first kill his ego.
The tendency to think of oneself as superior to others and the center of everyone’s attention causes the individual to place themselves on a false pedestal. The corollary is an unhealthy drive for perfection. Perfectionism stifles creativity, stunting a person’s progress. When a person accepts their commonality in relation to everything else, they no longer conceive of themselves as unfortunate victims of unfair circumstances but inventors capable of making summer out of the coal life deals them.
This is precisely how I am choosing to do life, thinking of myself as a nobody. The result of this mindset shift has been a less anxious me, showing up as I am and articulating my ideas unimpeded by fears of criticism or failure. Growth is the measure of an individual’s bravery, especially in the face of uncertainty.
I hope this long essay has been worth your time. If you enjoyed reading it, please show your support by giving it a clap and sharing your thoughts.
