order out of chaos?

Only in chaos is order to be found

That is a sentence I keep hearing often and to be honest, it confuses me a lot.

I am a control freak on all levels of my life. In the past I've studied different paths, most with a guide or a teacher on the specific path. A lot of them told me that my need for control is exactly what is 'blocking' me to move on.

Several years ago I became determind to loose the control obsession, out of the blue I met a guy who was into a form of chaos magic. He thought he could help me with what I wanted to achieve. The truth was that, back then I didn't understand a thing about what he tried to teach me, the theories involved quantum physics (things I never heard off back then) and his methods where all about "embracing chaos", inviting it even.
In me that eventually resulted into massive panic and fear attacks. I even needed to see my doctor and she diagnozed me with depersonalisation and derealisation and put me on Xanax for a few weeks. So much for the details...

anyway, the above was closer to chaos then I ever wanted to be and I never looked into the subject again.

but now that sentence keeps popping up everywhere in my life
"only in chaos is order to be found"
and I really don't have a clue on how to approach this or how to interprete it.

Is there an expert on the matter here?
all insights are welcome

I think the easiest way for me to see it is that something dies and decay occurs. An ordered system (living) becomes disordered (decay). This decay then goes on to become a part of the soil, fertilizing growth around it, creating life (order) out of death (chaos).

Life and death are just one way of looking at it. But I think the essential concept is the same regardless of how you apply it.

You use yourself as an example, so I would immediately think to ask if you believe you have an "organized" mind? Is the order you create in your environment a result of a chaotic inner life?

Perhaps not, and please pardon my amateur attempt at psychoanalysis

reply to post by TravelerintheDark


nope, in all honesty, I don't have an organized mind. My mind tends to go on and on like a thallys train, lol. I try to organize it by doing a lot of self-analysis, try to put every thought into the box it fits in, try to keep order in the chaos that is always there in some way... but guess what, There are no boxes, the box is the illusion...
so I guess in a way you are right that the obsession for order in my life is a result of a chaotic mind and the fear for chaos... because I have this idea that chaos can destroy you if you don't know how to deal with it

thanks for the reply and the insight

There is no such thing as absolute chaos, according to Ilya Prigogine. It is simply a stage in a continual evolutionary process, which is generative of something new. The universe itself is a dissipative structure and an open system, which his somehow able to dissipate entropy from itself, and there is no such thing as a closed system, everything is part of a non-local, holgraphic, interdependant whole, including the human being and the human mind and nervous system, as well as everytihng we think, are and do. There is no such thing as a purely isolate consciousness, though we do retain our own individuality and presumably, our privacy.

[edit on 5-6-2009 by OmegaPoint]

reply to post by GypsK

Hi there, GypsK. Two things you need to know.

1. In physics, order does indeed emerge out of chaos. It's called symmetry breaking.
   
   
2. Physics is not psychology.

I'm taking the trouble to address you and your post because it seems to me that you have actively suffered from your exposure to New Age pseudoscience and psychobabble. Please consider the following seriously.

• Quantum physics (more accurately quantum mechanics) only works on the scale of subatomic particles - a scale smaller than atoms. It does not translate into events in the real world - despite the success of a few very complicated experiments.
  
  
• The paradoxes of quantum mechanics do not mean that we can control the physical world with 'mind power' or through some mumbo-jumbo 'law of atttraction'. There is no scientific basis for such a belief. None at all. Don't believe the rubbish you read on this site or see in videos like What the Bleep Do We Know?
  
  
• If order and self-control work for you (they work for me), then for goodness's sake stop worrying and go with what's natural to you. If it keeps you content and helps you get things done, that's all you need.
  
  
• Never take advice concerning your mental health from anyone but a qualified psychiatrist (and even then, only in cases of extreme distress and trauma).
  

I wish you success in your journey away from confusion. I hope this helps, at least for a few steps along the way.

And listen to your heart and your instinct and don't always trust every sceptic who comes along either. Also psychiatrists are usually doctors who just prescribe drugs. What would be much better would be a loving Jungian psychotherapist who cares and who does not view themselves as on the other side of a very solid line of strict professionalism and cold, caculated "scientific" detachment..

I say that there really is no chaos, only life meeting life, which though it may appear to break apart is always regenerating and recreating itself and reording itself in new configurations.

The universe is friendly, loving and supportive (or I suppose we would not be here). And you are a dearly beloved child of an infinitely loving God that's really all you need to know.

Be well.

[edit on 5-6-2009 by OmegaPoint]

reply to post by OmegaPoint


Thanks you
I'm actually a big supporter of the LOA and in my opinion it has nothing to do with the question i asked about order and chaos...

reply to post by GypsK


You're welcome. Please don't take what I said as attempt to "diagnose" or "treat" anything

I asked mainly because, to put it simply, I think the more we understand about ourselves the more we empower ourselves to choose what we truly may have need to change and what we can lovingly accept.

As I see it, it's only an issue if you feel its an issue. And I think we have the power to change anything about ourselves that we wish. I wish though that we often felt more power to be who we are and need to be. Rather we often place that power with others and value their judgments about who we are more than we value ourselves.

I don't think inviting chaos into your life is really a necessary thing at all. Chaos will surface when it is good and ready to. And it always eventually does. Mostly it comes unexpected when you are ill prepared in the form of a lost job or death in the family or possibly a weather event. But sometimes it comes from inside when you are ready to make a change that is right for you. You feel led in a way towards what seems to be a crazy or stupid decision at the time. Further down the road you realize it was a good and necessary thing in your evolution. It is certainly nothing to be afraid of. All part of the balance that is a human becoming.