Seemingly one of the greatest accomplishments of humanity is the art of control.
It is what we strive for, what we seek in every part of our lives. We want to have control over our actions, control over our thoughts, control over our emotions, control over our environments. We want our internal and our external worlds to fall into a perfect balance, our minds fully functioning, funnelling our personalities exactly where it is best for them to go. It seems that the more a person controls, the more they can make of themselves. The more they have achieved.
If a person can control their thoughts, they can focus on their work to produce a better result. If they can control their actions, they can form better connections and create better outcomes based on the effort they very methodically and precisely input. If they can control their emotions, they can find joy in this world no matter where they set their sights. And of course, if a person can amass control over resources, they can count themselves as having achieved. Having stabilized their life through the symbolic acquiring of things. Having collected a tangible measurement of their value in object form. No matter the form of control, it is hailed as a blessed thing indeed when a person feels in control.
So of course, the majority of life happens in the chaos.
Among the many lofty pleasures that it affords, one thing that control very clearly is is limited. Control always only extends to a certain point. No matter where a person sits in the world, what they have conquered and collected in and outside of themselves, there is always a part of their lives that control does not reach, a corner that remains in the shadows of unfettered anarchy. It almost seems as though the smaller those corners are, the more power the chaos actually is. Control is a potent desire. As the bearer of it gets a taste for what it feels like, they will never stop yearning for more.
The dangers of control comes in the form of addiction to it. We begin to feel as though if we say the right thing, if we find the right object, if we feel the right sensation, if we are the right person, we can blanket our lives in control that no one will ever be able to take away. But control only exists because chaos exists right beside it. One without the other isn't really anything at all. Control won't offer us a thing all on its own.
Life is inherently chaos. It just is. Chaos is infinite, stretching to the furthest corners of the world. It handles the bits and pieces that control doesn't reach, negotiating in the middle to blur the lines between. Therein lies life.
Life happens in moments of stress, spurred on by our appraisal of situations we believe we can't handle. There, we are motivated to push past what we were capable of before, exploring new heights and boundless borders. If we had full control over our limitations, we wouldn't know how to break them.
Life happens in the unexpected moments through which we learn to adapt. The most resilient of all of us are not those that are ready for everything because that's impossible. It is those of us that know when they are thrown a curveball they can think on their feet and use the chaos to further their own intelligence.
Life happens in the fear that allows us to be brave. We would never be able to understand all that we are truly able to do were it not for the moments that make us wonder if we can do anything at all. Those moments allow us to learn about ourselves in ways we never could bound by control.
Life happens in the chaos because life is chaos. The chaos is the beauty that binds us to the world and gives us new possibilities every single day. Life is an adventure anew every second we live it. Control is nice. Life, though...life truly is exquisite.
