Life, liberty, & the pursuit of power

A short essay on the infinite game of life

Life is like the ocean.

It’s vast, chaotic, and comes at you in waves. At times, the sky is clear, the wind is right, and everything is smooth sailing. At other times, we’re in the eye of the storm surrounded by nothing but chaos and uncertainty.

It seems whatever phase of life we happen to find ourselves in, mother nature continues to do her thing. Unlike us, she knows what she’s all about. Her temperament is quick to change but her will is absolute.

One absolute that stands above the rest is a law we’re all very familiar with but often avoid the most. It is a law that, if acknowledged and embraced, separates the drifters from the doers, the dreamers from the achievers, and the powerless from the powerful.

It represents the anxiety you feel when you’ve put off your assignment to the final hour; the dread you get when you’re greeted with 736 unread emails after taking a long break; the pounds of fat that store around your waist after neglecting the workout & diet plan you ecstatically planned on new year’s eve.

I speak about the natural process of life to tend toward disorder - The Law of Entropy, or as I like to put it, the “shit gets worse over time without attention.”

Lost in the known

Entropy or “chaos”, represents all that is novel, unknown, and unexplored. Everything about you was once “chaos” (unknown) before it became “order” (known).

The operating system through which you navigate the world has been programmed by your parents, edited by your teachers, iterated by your peers, and solidified by your culture.

Don’t get me wrong, none of these are bad in itself, in fact, by and large, they act as the familiar borders that keep us safe, secure, and sane. But as with everything in life, too much of anything is when you begin to bargain with the devil.

There comes a point in everyone’s life, where the comfort of the “known” we confide ourselves, begins to collapse under its own weight and devour itself from within.

Like a child born in a prison, the line between the familiar walls of home and the bars of a cell becomes distorted. The thing designed to keep us out of harm’s way becomes the very thing that prevents the freedom, sovereignty, and autonomy we humans crave.

Most people are lost in life not because they find themselves amidst chaos, but because they have been drowning in the known their entire life. A true form of disorientation that goes from a cautious whisper when we’re young, to screams of vengeance by the time we’re 55.

If you want to avoid obscurity, the spearhead of your life must be directed toward a goal. This is hardly a revelation, but too many drift on the surface and find themselves at the end of life wondering where all the time went.

Here’s the bottom line:

No goal, no direction.
No direction, only chaos.

What’s the cure for chaos you ask? It is chaos itself.

But not just any chaos, the ones that specifically call out to you

- the problems you ignore.

Expanding power through order & chaos

Where there is chaos, there is opportunity for order.
Where there is opportunity for order, there is a path to purpose.
Where there is a path to purpose, there is power to be attained.

Want to know what the purpose of life is?
Want to know what the meaning of life is?

Sure, I’ll give it a crack.

The purpose of (your) life is embedded within the process of ordering (your) chaos.

The meaning of (your) life is embedded within the uniquely subjective voice of chaos that speak directly to you.

Nobody can tell you why certain things bug you, why you’re attracted to certain topics, why specific riddles pique your curiosity.

Since chaos is nature, and nature is infinite, your meaningful pursuit ends insofar as your will, wills it.

Purpose is often missed because people are not looking low enough, and not dreaming high enough.

Still following? Let me give an example:

When you’re folding or “ordering” a pile of clothes that have been collecting dust, in that isolated moment in time, you are living with genuine intent and purpose.

When that goal is achieved, we default back to a state of decay insofar as our eyes are set on the next goal.

Without “ordering” the next metaphorical “pile of clothes” that is our (nobody else’s) responsibility, we slip back into an existence of disorientation.

On the contrary, if you lean into your responsibilities and continue to overcome (order) the problems (chaos) that present themselves to you, you are quite literally expanding your control, authority, and power over that domain.

The external world (unknown) becomes the internal world (known).

As higher levels of power are acquired, higher levels of responsibility are presented and the cycle of power continues.

This is the infinite game of life. Whether you decide to play or not, is up to you.

Beloved readers!

I hope you enjoyed that one :)

I’ve been hard at work trying to “order the chaos” in my mind and I’ve recently been struck with a kind of analysis paralysis hence my upload schedule has been whack. I greatly appreciate your patience and I’ve got so much to come over the coming weeks.

Thank you for reading and until next time!