Order

I realized something the other day.  I was finally able to put together a coherent picture of what I value in life, and I was at peace.

People who "know" me "know" that I like Chaos.  Hang around me and you will see that I sprinkle Chaos here and there for no apparent reason.  I like seeing things change in Chaotic ways.  I remember when I got my first and only speeding ticket, I was so happy that I laughed the whole way home, because my life had suddenly changed in a way that I couldn't predict.

But a friend once said to me that I didn't love Chaos, that it was all a sham.  Well, I thought that was odd, because I believe she was the one that said I reminded her of Loki.  She went on to say that if I loved Chaos, then I would love children, because they are bundles of Chaos.  That was indeed a puzzler for me, something that sat in the back of my mind for six-ish years now...  then I had the aforementioned realization!  She was right, I do not love Chaos, but love Order - I had just confused the two.

What I love is the appearance of Chaos.

It was once said that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", which is something that I hold to be true.  My realization is that the same can be said about Order - "Any sufficiently advanced Order is indistinguishable from Chaos", and that is what I love.

There is this commercial that I love to watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QctBJj3Ilhk  From the outside viewer all of the events appear Chaotic, but from the point of view of a really insightful person it is actually a very Ordered set of events.

All of this matches my actual World View - what I think of the gods people call "trickster gods", like Loki, is that people view them from the wrong point of view.  They are not evil or Chaotic, but so very Ordered that it is beyond the scope of normal Humans like us to understand.  There is a SciFi novel I read a long time ago in which there were a group of people that lived thousands of years and they would do things that would seem random to normal people, but for them had payoffs hundreds of years in the future.  I loved that story and have modeled my life around it.

Summary:  Chaos is not what you think, it is probably just Order with a depth outside of your level of experience.  And that is how I view Chaos, something that I do not understand, but somewhere, some being does and to him it appears as Order.

The Edward

Power

When I was a kid, my brother and I read a lot of comic books.  I'm not sure if he read them for the same reason I did - they were prescribed for me.  The reading coach recommended them to my parents as a way to get me to start reading, in hopes of overcoming a problem, but that is too real world for this blog.  The important part, as always, is the comic books.

I read Richie Rich, The Archies, etc.  My brother read them as well, but he also read War-based comic books, which I didn't care for.  Every so often he pointed out interesting stories to me, by interesting I of course mean weird - even then, he knew I like unusual stuff... some people never change.

At the time, we both remembered every book we owned by the covers.  We could recall every story we had read, even though we had hundreds of books.  But after all of these years, there is only one story that really has stuck with me and it was one that my brother told me about from one of his War comics.  It was a story that changed my life.

The story was about a troop of men, they were supposed to pick up this one guy and transport him home.  He was a person who, when people heard his name, trembled in fear.  When they arrived at the spot to get him, they were shocked to find that he was dressed not in military gear, but in loose flowing clothes and only carrying two knifes, no guns or any real weapons.  He looked so passive and weak, that they didn't believe it was the person they were looking for.

They took him on the boat to take him home, but during the trip he was distant, never really talked with anyone.  They troop started making fun of him - they would pick on him, yet he never fought back.  They couldn't believe they were spending their time taking this loser home when they had a War to be fighting, and they were disheartened that this most feared person looked like a "queer".

The boat stops to take care of one last thing before going home and the whole troop gets captured.  They are facing overwhelming odds and knew they were all going to die or face a lifetime of torture.  Then the lone solider they were escorting snaps out of it and wields his knifes like an insane killing machine.  He slaughters all of enemies and when he gets to the last one on the edge of a cliff, the grabs him and jumps off the cliff taking the last enemy with him.  He saved the troop, killed all of the enemies, and killed himself in the process.

The troop was in shock (as was I - "Why did he have to die?", I asked).  They end up getting back to the base where they were to take the lone solider and there they hear his story.  He had become so good at killing that he went "insane" - he realized that there was no pointing killing, because no one could stand in his way.  He wasn't fighting the enemy, he was just slaughtering them like animals.  He changed his clothes, changed his look, and dropped out of this world mentally in hopes of not being challenged ever again.  When he had to give it up, he decided he would rather die than go back to his old life, so he did.

And that is my tale of Power.  Power so great that it has nothing to push against.  Power without equal leads to madness.

The Edward

PS  There was another story that has stuck with me as well, from a Richie Rich story.  I do not remember the details of the story other than one panel, but that one panel had a very powerful message for me as well.  Next time (or the time after next).