No, I am not writing about Brazil nuts
Welcoming unavoidable chaos with open arms
“You should call your next Substack ‘the truth about Brazil nuts - what they’re not telling you’”, my sister gleefully proclaimed. We were drinking cocktails and they served us a bowl of mixed nuts on the side. I thought about a conversation I was involved in at the office where I work a week or so ago on the topic of Brazil nuts. The revelation was shared that your daily serving is literally meant to be like 2. Rumour has it if you chomp down 50 it’ll be enough to finish you off with selenium poisoning. I recounted all of this to my sister whose response was then to suggest I use my Substack for investigative journalism into the hidden dangers of mixed nuts. Followed by a disclaimer that I am not medically trained or a nutritionist, of course. I’m sorry to disappoint you all that I will not be doing that. I did want to talk about chaos today though and so I thought the story did somewhat work as a nice intro.
In the beginning, there was Chaos. This is how Ancient Greeks believed the world began, through Chaos. Wikipedia (ever a trustworthy source of knowledge) defines the Ancient Greek use of the word Chaos as the following:
The mythological void state preceding the creation of the universe (the cosmos) in Greek creation myths.
There lies the foundations for the noun we use today to define disorder, mayhem and frenzy.
The idea of chaos is something I’ve spoken about in therapy before to describe different moments and times in my life. It’s a word that became interchangeable with ‘things I can’t control’. So, the thought of chaos was scary and something I feared. Who would want to welcome chaos into their life? Chaos was an evil witch using her sadistic powers simply to torture us all!
Then I started to think about the origins of the word and how the relationship with Chaos has evolved. Chaotic unforeseen cataclysmic events bought the world as we know it into existence. Chaos was a sense of trial and error. Mess that bought with it new life, exciting opportunities and a brighter future. Creation of all things is synonymous with chaos.
This became some incredibly powerful reframing for me. Chaos could be something I welcomed as an opportunity. A chance to learn. To be guided closer towards where I’m meant to be. To accept the things that I can’t control might well be chaos too, and there’s truly fuck all I can do about that.
As Epictus with his worldly wisdom said:
Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are in your control and some things are not.
If I can somehow no longer fear chaos, but simply observe and wait for the wonder left behind in its wake, perhaps we could even be friends.
Maybe I took it a bit too far. Just over a month ago I got a new tattoo. You can already see where this is going. It’s some beautiful swirly, dainty cursive of the word Chaos. And just like that, I bound our fates together forever.
This isn’t to say I’m now in active pursuit of chaos. I went to see one of Jessie Cave’s ‘work in progress’ shows last month and was struck by a particular line. “I manufacture situations of chaos”. I related because it’s exactly how I used to feel. Not so much the self manufacturing, but definitely that chaos seemed to seek me out as its target, much more often than your average Joe.
Although saying that it’s certainly how I’ve felt about my writing, to be fair. That type of chaos is something different entirely though. It’s more linked to what I spoke about last week in terms of digital cluttering and finding my own ordering of notes and ‘stuff’ chaotic. I guess now I’m affirming that in the chaos of my writing there will be work to dig up and find, something of great beauty with the promise of success? I surely hope so.
