Pandemonium

I have been away from this blog, trying to make sense of the chaos in my life. I thought that with enough time I would have the answers. Apologies, I am back! I have learnt a lot along the way that I will share with you guys over time.  I realised the more I tried to understand the chaos, the more confusing it became and ended up blank. During my quarter life crisis I turned to philosophy and I was reunited with my beloved philosopher, Socrates. Who proudly declared ‘All I know is that I know nothing.'  This opened new avenues of curiosity for me as I was able to let my preconceptions go about how I should be living my life. 

 We often assume that if we can plan our life out well enough, everything will go to plan. Excessively thinking far ahead only makes us lose sight of the path we are on.  If we place too much emphasis on what has been, or what might be, it is a waste of our time. We as humans are not perfect, we all have our own flaws. We forget that we are animals, with animalistic desires, fears and primitive thoughts. We are attempting to collaborate with a brain that is wired for our survival.

 I had a realisation that life, is Pandemonium. Otherwise defined as chaos or utter crazy-ness. I came across this term when I was watching a netflix show called the Good place. There was a scene that resonated with me, the leading lady was trying to make sense of her life and the feelings she had for a romantic interest. She demanded the answers to everything from a deity who possessed all the knowledge in the universe. 

 The deity smiled solemnly and said "Things make less sense as we go through life, but that it is part of the fun. If there were an answer to how the universe works, it wouldn't be special, we would just be machinery fulfilling its cosmic design, but since nothing seems to make sense, when you find something, or someone that does it is euphoric, in all this randomness and pandemonium." 

I was in awe, there is chaos so we can appreciate tranquility. Without a little chaos our lives would be boring, if everything had a set outcome would we venture to try it if we knew what would happen?  It’s the necessity of dualism in our lives, when we step out of an intensely upsetting place, our happiness almost feels other-worldly, because we have a greater appreciation about what it means to be happy. When we are having a bad day and a friend sends us a nice text message or calls us up to make us laugh, there is a feeling of elation. To recall the story of the man and his horse from a previous entry, there is neither good or bad things that happen to us. It simply is. A negative thing could lead to a positive outcome, a positive thing could lead to a negative outcome, some times there isn't a way of knowing for certain. In life, we need to embrace the chaos, embrace the uncertainty, we may never have the answers to what we are seeking but the journey to discovery is pretty-damn exhilarating.

I was talking to a good friend of mine and I asked what one of his tattoo's meant. The meaning behind it reminded me of the message I had heard from the tv show. What scares us or seems like the most crazy thing, might be the best thing for us. I’m not saying go and jump off a cliff without a parachute, that would be stupid. Nevertheless, some level of fear and chaos is essential for our survival. Sometimes fear is there for no good reason, holding us back from who we really want to be but sometimes it can be the very thing that causes us to grow and become self-aware. 

 The more I study people, the more I learn how no two people are alike, we all have different values, priorities, fears, defences and experiences that can shape us or haunt us, but all those things makes us human. We have differing morals, differing dreams, but Pandemonium is within all of us, especially in the ideas we have or the dreams we desire. All of this stems from our individuality. If someone didn’t believe that it was possible for humans to fly planes would not exist. The idea might have sounded utterly insane at first, but did the Wright brothers give up? Of course not. Did Walt Disney give up when he was building his business in his garage? No. Did JK Rowling give up when publishers rejected Harry Potter twelve times? Hell no. So if you haven’t done that thing yet, why not? I ask you, what is holding you back? and how much better would all of our lives be if we all did more of what terrified us?

Maybe what scares us is endless possibility, the unknown, rejection, change, whatever it might be. ‘Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom’ what frightens us or seems impossible, can teach a great deal about the world and about ourselves.  Whatever chaos we have within us, we shouldn’t fight it or fear it, but embrace it, face fear head on and live life to your greatest potential, because otherwise it might be too late. Do we want to end up on our death bed filled with regrets? The things we never said? The dreams we let go? We must live boldly, but tread lightly, step by step, in the only moment we will ever have. Now. Embracing the chaos as it unfolds around us.