I spent today (Sunday) in a business meeting. The subject and direction of the disucssion was fairly radical; acutally, it was almost heretical for my business. We’re getting ready to shake things up again . . . which is something we’ve done very well over the past several years. 
We’ve gone from being kooks to being feared. Rightly so. It’s amazing what happens when a few inspired individuals focus on the same issue: the world changes.
It got me thinking about rules, chaos and human nature.
We are such desperate creatures. We struggle and fight for meaning. We will die to achieve purpose. We are so driven to make sense of it all that we cling and clutch at anything that looks like an explanation. And we will make ourselves subservient to anything that gives us a believable set of rules to live by.
Of course, that’s what religion is all about: someone else’s rule book accepted by the masses as the answer. And people clutch at it as if it were a life preserver after a shipwreck. Even though the life preserver is a phantom, a mirage, something that’s not really there, the beleaguered grasp at it for comfort and slowly drown.
But it’s not just religion. It’s every social convention. We get together in our collective unconscious and shared history, and invent a set of rules that define the way we see things. The need for rules is so strong that we often don’t even see what doesn’t fit them. The exception keeps floating by; it’s the next ‘answer;’ but we don’t even see it. We don’t recognize it. We think it’s just a puff of smoke or a cloud.
That’s why terrorism has been so effective. It takes a strategy for destruction that is so totally foreign to our set of rules that we don’t even see it — and then brings it to reality. The effect is devastation not only to our world vision, to our towers and to our sense of safety, but to our very souls. The old model is smashed forever. Nothing will ever be the same.
I think it was like that in the American Revolution. I stop short of calling the minutemen ‘Terrorists,’ but think about it. What did they do? They took a fighting strategy that was so completely different from the rules of conventional warfare at the time, and used it to confuse and confound the British. While the red coats marched down the lane in double file precision, line one kneeling to fire then stepping back to load while line 2 stepped forward, knealt and fired, the Americans dashed onesy twosy behind trees and walls and picked them off one by one. It just wasn’t fair!
The lesson is this: the one who can successfully challenge the most widely held views will have the keys to the kingdom in the years to come. They will redefine the game.
Me: I guess I’m an anarchist at heart. I follow rules all the time, but I do it because I don’t need any more hassle in my life, not because I embrace or believe in them. I’m much more a fan of chaos. My life 
has never resembled a train motoring down a straight track at 65 miles per hour, going from point A to point B. It’s been more like a sailboat in a variable wind that constantly changes direction. I’m always checking the trim of my sails and adjusting my navigation depending on what I see. I’m very comfortable with that; it’s an adventure.
Of course, this kind of thinking drives lots of other people crazy. In my business life, I’ve always been willing to scrap whatever we’ve got in favor of a new design if we get credible new information that the change will be beneficial. I’ll change direction quickly and easily if I think it’s a better idea. I’ve usually been the leader (either formally or informally) and therefore have great influence over these kinds of decisions. But the people who work for me, the ones who get it done, each with their own specialty bear the brunt of the stress this approach produces. They plan their own piece of the work logically, step by step and here I come, halfway through the process, shouting ‘Stop the presses! Stop the presses!’ It must be maddening.
My pal, Dot, is always accusing me of being a waffle. She says I flip-flop on nearly everything and tend to agree with whoever spoke last. I prefer to think of it as the ability to see all sides of an issue and willingness to shift support depending on who has the best argument in the moment. When I present that opinion, she usually launches into a tirade about people who have no values, who are not led through their lives by core beliefs. . . and she’s talking about me.
But it’s not true. I do have core beliefs:
1. People are essentially good.* Yes, I acknowledge evil. When I encounter it I am always shocked and saddened. Then I work hard at eliminating it from my mind or at least pushing it back behind the good I see. I believe people usually do the best they can to achieve what they perceive to be the best result. I also believe that perception of what the best result is can be influencd by elloquent, passionate people . . . like Jesus.
2. Life is organic. It is constantly changing. And change is good. It keeps us fresh and alive and keeps the game interesting. It gives us something new to learn at every turn. Excitement. Adventure. Nothing is ever finished and everything is open to debate. We are solving a puzzle that is constantly shifting — and, isn’t that fun!
3. We are curious creatures. We are driven by our need to experiment, to discover, to find out, to explore. That is, until our educational institutions drive those demons from us!
4. This free-flowing adventure of life can be frightening if you are not confident in your ability to be ok, no matter what. (That’s a good definition for Trust. When you say you Trust someone or something, what you’re really saying is that you know you’ll be ok no matter what happens. Trust is about ourselves, not somebody else.) Saddly, lots of people cling to their own ‘truth’ — which is to say ‘rules’ — about how things are, and ignore what doesn’t fit that vision. Like me: seeing people as good and ignoring evidence to the contrary. I am not confident in my ability to exist in a world where evil is as common as good. So I can be a bit of a Pollyanna.
I bet if I thought about it, I’d find more than four core beliefs, but they’d probably all be derivative. And constricting. And rather rule-like.
I love Mexico. I go there all the time. I was there yesterday, just farting around Tijuana, having Caldo de Res at a local eatery far from the gringo mecca, Avenue Revolution. Mexico in general and Tijuana in particular are about as close to chaos as I’ve ever seen. 
Yes there is rule and law, but it is so inconsistently applied and so seldom visible that almost anything can happen on the streets. It’s an earthy, organic environment. And because I have a positive picture of people in general, I love that lack of control. I don’t worry about what I’ll meet walking down the wrong street . . . usually.
It’s an attitude that’s worked for me for more than 50 years. It’s allowed me to go off advernturing in places most Westerners wouldn’t consider. It’s also kept me from attracting tragedy and horror to myself. I’ve never been threatened out in the world. I don’t draw that kind of evergy to myself.
So, are there no rules, really? Are rules just our desperate attempt to create order out of chaos? Or are we driven by forces outside of ourselves? Are the rules just a reflection of the impulse that drives us forward (God)?
Yes, and yes. First, we make the mistake of assuming that ‘forces outside ourselves’ means one or two or a dozen forces — and we try to create rules that reflect those few. The truth is there are millions of forces outside ourselves influencing us minute by minute and second by second. Our rules only make sense for some of those forces . . . so we ignore the rest.
Me? Give me chaos. Give me change. Let’s go swimming in the soup. I don’t really have to know WHY at every moment . . . the WHY will emerge as we move forward bit by bit. And bit by bit, the WHY will change. Life is about fractal’s not formaulae. . . about discovering the ever changing order in chaos rather than trying to organize it . . . about people being part of lawless Nature, not attempting to dominate it.
(Fractal photos courtesy of the universe)
*Note that I wrote this in 2004, after 9/11 but before the MAGA era. Twenty+ years later, I still believe in basic goodness, in curiosity and chaos, that life is an adventure. But I’ve had to acknowledge that there is a large segment of humanity that is burdened with hatred, judgement, and condemnation. I think that element has always been there but since the turn of the Century it’s become ok for it to express itself loudly, persistantly and in-your-face. My observation is that the rise of brick-wall anger parallels the decline of American education. A whole ‘basket of deplorables’ is so poorly educated that they allow other peoples’ agendas to determine what they think. Talk radio, Citizens United and Fox News keep them innoculated from the truth and in a constant state of fear. They are in an eternal quest to find the next boogeyman, the next one to hate. It’s election season here in Texas, and numerous ads have found a new target: Sharia Law. The Republicans are stoking terror by sugesting that there is a movement afoot to implement that harsh rule. It is an imaginary issue to terrify voters into keeping them in power. There is no push anywhere in the State for the adoption of Sharia Law. It’s just a powerful boogeyman.