Embracing Chaos
There are no cheap tickets to mastery. You have to work hard at it, whether that means rigorously analyzing a system or rigorously casting off your own paradigms and throwing yourself into the humility of not-knowing.
In the end, it seems that mastery has less to do with pushing leverage points than it does with strategically, profoundly, madly, letting go and dancing with the system.
In an increasingly (perhaps frustratingly) AI-driven future, we should rethink our relationship with chaos and complexity. The traditional measure of productivity—our ability to "organize the chaos"—is becoming increasingly obsolete.
Chaos is unmanageable by nature, and complexities are infinite. The new measure of success lies in our emotional resilience and our ability to not just tolerate, but actively enjoy complexity and embrace chaos.
We will thrive in this future not by attempting to impose order on disorder, but by actively enjoying the everliving fuck out of it. Success comes from noticing and naming what arises in you when systems resist further simplification. Instead of following a mindset that obsesses over simplification (complex == bad), we must focus on building emotional resilience and finding joy in complexity.
The more I notice this in my journey—and the better I get at feeling the emotion underlying anxiety rather than just reacting to it—the more I find myself enjoying complication. Complexity becomes refreshing, filled with opportunity rather than dread. Those who embrace chaos and understand their reactions to persistent uncertainty ultimately feel most at peace.
Chaos should not be feared, but revered. It's innovative and progressive—foundational to reality itself. Our avoidance of it keeps us bounded by stagnant identity. Want to be "more productive" and happier? Don't simplify—fucking embrace the chaos!
Frustration abounds with our cultural obsession with making everything simple, sometimes to the point where simplicity itself becomes annoyingly unhelpful. In these oppressively reductive patterns, we often make things worse for both the layperson and the advanced tinkerer. While simplicity has its place, the idea that it's always the right tactic is maddening.
The phrase "make sense of chaos" or "simplify the chaos" has become meaningless jargon. What the fuck are we even talking about? You cannot simplify chaos—it is untameable—that's what makes it chaos. We can, however, choose to be thrashed by its waves, or learn to surf them. 🌊
To me, productivity is not a measure of ordered, systematic achievement—there is always more to do than you can manage. The more you organize with the intent to do more, the more there is to manage: more work, more need, more grief, more pain—all unbounded. You cannot simplify your way through—you must radically embrace failure and discordance. Truly, the only times I feel accomplished are when I let go of the need to simplify and embrace more intuitive action.
My agenda is to get more folks to believe that chaos is interesting and invigorating, and cannot be simplified, ordered, or even harnessed. At best, we can create islands of stability, utilizing adaptive techniques that enable us to weather the storm; survival becoming a creative act.
Many folks say issues are "complex" when they actually mean "complicated" (and vice versa). It's a subtle distinction, but an important one:
My TL;DR:
💻 Complicated: hard to solve, manageable with systems.
🧠 Complex: hard to solve, not obviously manageable with systems.
While simplicity (by convention, by configuration) is highly desirable, it's crucial to recognize that some operations are necessarily complex. Trying to operate as if things were "simply complicated" (and thus solvable with convention) can get you into trouble.
Order has its place—systems allow us to get work done. Tools like Notion, Coda, et al, give us the ability to create ordered systems, but they also enable "blank canvas," chaos-driven growth. Chaos can be an invigorating state; one we shouldn't be scared to explore when innovation is required.
The key isn't to eliminate chaos or to surrender to it entirely, but to develop the emotional resilience to dance with it. In this dance, we find not just productivity, but joy, innovation, and a deeper connection with the fundamental nature of reality itself.
Embrace the chaos, love. Hail Eris!
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