I believe in chaos. In absurdity. I believe that systems run the way they are designed to function, but that many systems in our life are too nuanced to be the simple result of outputting the logical results as inputted. I think many of us wish we control our fate, our families, our relationships. But we don't. We don't because there is more than meets the eye in our culture, natural phenomena, and even within the physics that drive our universe. I think I spent too much of my life falling for that trap. I always wanted to protect people and make them feel safe. I always wanted tidiness in my existence. Not only a clean, tidy home, but tidy predictable routines and outcomes to my actions. I wanted to sleep at night thinking to myself, "well the universe is functioning super logically today."
In a sense, it's a bit hypocritical for me to crave simplicity in my life when I myself want to dig deeper and embrace complexity in my philosophy, work, and self. But still... Like this last election cut me deep. There was a lot of information about what the current administration's agenda was, but now many seem to have buyer's remorse. If the agenda had been hidden I would have considered it a logical thing. But the agenda was there. How can we as a people filter the input to the point where the obvious becomes obfuscated? It's illogical that bias exists to the extent that it impacts health, livelihood, access to resources and the ability to grow? Like why would someone say..."I abhor this collective so much I will make their whole damn lifespan shorter." They have the same basic structure, no? We're all humans. It's stupid. Chaos reigns despite the tidiness of that fact. How many people neglect their children and never pay? How many innocent families are accused and fear losing their children? Because, what? It's not directly correlated in how much attention, care and nurturing the family gives their little ones. It's chaos. One can pour the very marrow of one's soul into love and nurturing, but that doesn't guarantee the relationships will thrive. Relationships working has no checklist, magic bullets or secrets. They work or they don't, irregardless of effort. So much seems to be like that. In a way it is liberating, the universe is not transactional at an abstract level. Or more accurately it is, but the factors that cause things are too buried to be reduced to simple guidelines in most cases.
How does one live when effort ≠ results? When input and output become divorced beyond our perception? How does one deal with that loss of innocence? Of knowing that one is at the mercy of the flap of one butterfly's wings? I read that meaning comes from finding one's own sense of what is important. To almost ignore the pain of chaos. But that's a bit precious imo. Grieving a family member's loss, a threat to one's loved one, the loss of a job via spreadsheet cutting, having doctor's that don't listen or people who believe in one's power. It's hard to embody the abstract lesson that this is all a dream when one's beating heart and tight throat feel oh so real. I also don't believe that meaning is derived in surviving pain. How many lessons are required to be worthy of happiness? How much can life take while we romantisize turning the other cheek? How much can we let life exploit without taking a closer look at the systems that drive us? No... we might learn from suffering individually or collectively, but how easy we forget the hard earned truths. I'm not sure if the meaning is as simple as do your best, or it's something deeper.
Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.
Antiracist educator and author Debby Irving uses an often-cited headwinds and tailwinds metaphor to explain the invisibility of these systemic, group-level differences. Headwinds are the challenges -- some big, some small, some visible, some invisible -- that make life harder for some people, but not for all people. When you run against a headwind, your speed slows down and you have to push harder. You can feel the headwind. When you have a tailwind pushing you, it is a force that propels you forward. It is consequential but easily unnoticed or forgotten. In fact, if you are like me when I jog with a tailwind, you may glow with pride at your great running time that day, as if it were your own athletic prowess. When you have the tailwind, you will not notice that some runners are running into headwinds. They may be running as hard as, or even harder than, you, but they will appear lazier and slower to you. When some of them grow tired and stop trying, they will appear self-destructive to you.
― Dolly Chugh (The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias)