Top Comments night, once again, and what the hell to write about?!
I thought the times were crazy last week, but it seems to keep going to a different level. The times aren’t just bad. As is so often the case, there is a great deal of good news out there. I can’t think of any right this second, so I will write on until I do.
Change! What a bugaboo! Sometimes it seems, as Heraclitus suggested, that the only real constant is change itself.
More below.
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I have another quotation for you about change.
The quotation I mean came from the sequel to Jurassic Park. Early in the book, Crichton wrote the following words for his scientist, Ian Malcolm (played by Jeff Goldblum in the original movie all those centuries ago). It’s not the first time I’ve written about it. Last time, I said:
The “edge of chaos” is a phrase I first heard during a reading of Michael Crichton’s sequel to Jurassic Park (The Lost World). A scientist in the book speaks of extinction, the natural phenomenon of dying out, and the factors pertaining to it.
Per Crichton, then:
Of the self-organizing behaviors, two are of particular interest to the study of evolution. One is adaptation. We see it everywhere. Corporations adapt to the marketplace, brain cells adapt to signal traffic, the immune system adapts to infection, animals adapt to their food supply. We have come to think that the ability to adapt is characteristic of complex systems---and may be one reason why evolution seems to lead toward more complex organisms.
But even more important seems to be the way complex systems seem to strike a balance between the need for order and the imperative to change. Complex systems seem to locate themselves at a place we call "the edge of chaos." We imagine the edge of chaos as a place where there is enough innovation to keep a living system vibrant, and enough stability to keep it from collapsing into anarchy. It is a zone of conflict and upheaval, where the old and new are constantly at war. Finding the balance point must be a delicate matter---if a living system drifts too close, it risks falling over into incoherence and dissolution; but if the system moves too far away from the edge, it becomes rigid, frozen, totalitarian. Both conditions lead to extinction. Too much change is as destructive as too little. Only at the edge of chaos can complex systems flourish.
I am reminded of it today because of the astonishing level of change we are currently facing. If you are not as isolated as Robinson Crusoe, you are probably experiencing unprecedented changes now.
One of the astonishing things about it, for me, is the contrast of the drastic changes with the things that have not changed: how the sky looks, how flowers bloom, pollen falls, the kitties move and engage, how songs sound … To judge from so many elements of our every day, things are perfectly normal!
Then, behind it all is an awareness that makes all the difference: it’s here, it’s real, it can kill and anyone we encounter can be carrying it.
So, we can’t live our lives as we did two weeks ago. Worse, there’s no knowing how long it will be until things do return to some semblance of normal, and there is no way to know what the longer term consequences and changes will be. Some suspect coronavirus could become a frequent repeat visitor. We just don’t know. But we do know things have changed, and that things are changing. And that the worst thing we could do would be to relax and let guard down too soon. (Hong Kong is paying a price for that right now, I am sorry to say.)
Frankly, there is no path through except via yet more change.
I really liked the Crichton quote, above, because of how it seems to recognize that we each have a unique spectrum of tolerance for change/chaos.
The last time I wrote about the edge of chaos was when the Daily Kos site was redesigned. Some people were upset by the changes. Some left. That ‘chaos’ was completely within my spectrum. It caused me no difficulty or discomfort at all. Clearly this is orders of magnitude beyond that, and still (at least as a not sick person #knockonwood) I’m coping fairly well. I am not doing well handling the news of such impact for those who have gotten sick or been exposed. I am not happy about the circumstances of millions whose livelihoods have been threatened, if not devastated. Service workers - FRIENDS! - from favorite restaurants are suffering quite literally, because there is no income coming in and no immediate prospects of it in their chosen field. Lower gas prices don’t begin to offset the consequences.
So far, just about everyone I have encountered has been relatively stable in dealing with it. (Known cases are no closer than 2-3º of separation, so far. :knockonwood) I think that’s a good thing. I understand we are in the beginning of this process, and the stresses aren’t diminishing.
Oh, about the title. Certainly the times are fucking nuts. But I thought about it in part because of a recent resolution I made for personally coping with the threat. DTYFF. The anagram means: don’t touch your ucking ace. So I adopted it, though, I confess, so far, with only ixed uccess. I’m trying to change and grow and improve, recognizing that the changes before us are not politically correct, they’re pandemically correct.
I hope the change we face remains within your spectrum, and that you and your friends and loved ones remain safe in this perilous time.
On to tonight’s comments. Formatted by my dear friend, brillig!
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