I am perfectly content to live my life as I always have. To me, change is uncertainty. It only leads to an unknown outcome, whether favorable or unpleasant. Our ever changing society is a result of chaos. A maelstrom of incidents, happenstances, coincidences. Maybe even fate. It is through this howling chaos and change that we seek order. Chaos and unexpected occurences temporarily cripple us. But it is through a strong desire to establish order, to regain control, that we persevere through change.
In Kent Haruf's Plainsong, order and chaos churn the small town of Holt, ripping families apart and slapping broken ones together. Bobby and Ike, two boys who live alone with their father, suffer from confusion and disappointment when their mother abandons them due to her emotional instability. In order to cope with the instability in their lives, the boys seek out order by replacing their mother with someone else. The chaos left in the wake of her leaving forces the boys to turn to others for maternal affection. They latch onto an elderly woman whose paper they deliver, reestablishing the role of a guardian in their lives. The boys were emotionally weakened by the trauma in their lives, yet it was through their struggles that they overcame their sense of abandonment and sought some form of normalcy.
Odysseus is a pawn in the chaotic game of life that the gods play. His terrifying adventures and his exile on an island throw him into an unimaginable depression. The Odyssey describes Odysseus' fight through the undesired obstacles in his life, showing that through strife one's true potential is discovered. By enduring his trials, he finds the resolve to return to his old life; his life with his wife and son on the island of Ithaka.
Order seems a relatively safe place to dwell, while chaos is a culmination of unexpected and often undesired twists and turns in our lives. Yet chaos forces us to become stronger. It forces us to deal with whatever life decides to throw at us, giving us the endurance to return to a state of order.
Fine musings. I would venture to say that Odysseus emerges from his sentence of ten years of uncertainty as emblem/harbinger of a New Order, one that pays homage to the need to revere the gods and not simply act out of emotion but out of reason, as well.
ReplyDeleteTo what extent does "chaos" and uncertainty give rise to new order?
Must one be "in control" to be at peace?
Can meaning be found in uncertainty? If so, what kind of meaning?