Turns out that this stasis/travelog, textually, is largely an oblique view of life. That is, it rarely explores the full-frontal texture of immediate living, and is skewed hard from the momentary intensity of be-ing. To rectify or not? Pre-existing thought patterns are pre-set to provide habitual observations rather than express the internal landscape of the moment in any detail. Projects have become projects through static repetition of vision: along the road’s verge; portraits; watching the sky. The patterns exist in accordance to Hebbs Rule and the struggle between excitatory and inhibitory synapses. But I will resist neuro-predestination derailing a search for the explicit, the direct, the idiosyncratic in my own temporary existence, as it is slowly consumed by hyper-rational societal stresses.
As life-time shifts into a higher potential for change, the level of chaos increases, feeding back into that potential. This was the subject of thought on the return leg—down-hill coasting—of one of my regular winter cycling perambulations yesterday. It started with the somewhat banal idea that chaotic flows are an efficient way to dissipate (excess) energy in a system. The simple availability of excess energy may well be a (the?) primary source for the need to dissipate it. [This idea may be connected to the rise of complexity in a social system where the system finally collapses under the sheer impossibility of management.]
Imagine a mangrove swamp on an exposed intertidal coastline. Along with the dense canopy of branches and beefy leaves, note the prop root structure of the red mangrove: many small root protrusions arcing out from the trunk and through the shallow standing water into the sandy sediment. When a storm—as an expression of a self-organizing high-energy system—arrives with large scale movements of water and wind, the structure of a mangrove swamp, with its profusion of interruptions to the massive laminar flow of the storm, causes a direct depletion of the storm’s immense energy. The opposite of this dissipation is a result of human engineering—paving over of the coastline, removing trees and other natural obstructions. The storm’s energy is unimpeded, unquenched, and roars inland with its high-velocity laminar flow intact.
The mangrove barrier island works in the same way as other energy barriers, absorbing the energy through chaotic diffusion. Another example: ever stood by a chicken-wire fence in the wind? You can hear the susseration of complex and chaotic vortices caused by the thin wires interrupting the smooth flow of the wind. Same with the wind in the leaves of a tree. In both cases, a certain fraction of the wind’s energy is converted to sonic (and other) energies.
Imagine a powerful and malevolent energy coursing through the social system. This force gains strength whenever individuals fail to filter it through their own idiosyncratic interpretations, thoughts, and personal perspective. Like water rushing unimpeded through the concrete channels of the LA River, societal currents flow fastest when contained within a uniform course. In contrast, our idiosyncratic thoughts and actions—the very essence of genuine personal freedom—create natural barriers against the dangerous momentum of authoritarianism, personality cults, and the monolithic belief systems that so often emerge in human societies. Our individual spin on ideas doesn’t just express our uniqueness; it creates essential chaotic friction against the otherwise unchecked flow of collective ‘laminar’ thought.
