Patterns Number Four

Order.

Chaos.

Flip sides of the same coin. With one there’s no growth, no change, no insight, no art, no surprise, no humor, no joy. With the other there’s no security, no comfort, no safety, no patterns, no learning, no building, no reprieve.

Balance is key, but difficult to attain. Nature does it blindly, based on chance, “choosing” systems that work simply because they work, only to cast them aside mercilessly when something else comes along. Humans do it with purpose, based on reason, building systems that work better than the old systems by design, sticking with what works until something better can be created to be better.

Nature makes no excuses, admits no errors, and celebrates no triumphs. It simply is. Humans have incredible hubris, refuse to apologize for anything, and focus strictly on the moment.

Nature presses forward toward the next eon. Humans can’t get past this year, the next quarter, next week, or this morning.

Both in balance with themselves and each other could take us to the far ends of the galaxy. Out of balance, there are a billion things that could happen and 999,999,999 of them are bad.

We don’t know which path we’re on. But we’re going to find out, one way or the other.