Saturday, June 05, 2010

It will take time to restore chaos.

Yesterday evening, we were in a Denver steakhouse, and I and Mas Kondo and Nathan were discussing American politics.
Mas referred to the immortal George Bush blunder of saying "You know, it will take time to restore chaos", referring to the situation in Iraq.

Watch George say it.



Mas, being a liberal man, threw it at us as a demonstration of good old George's low intelligence. Another liberal that is I, while enjoying Mas's jokes, went into a pensive mode from which it took a few minutes to come back.

Needless to say, what Mr. Bush really meant to say was that "it will take time to restore order". But Freudian slips (if that was indeed a Freudian slip) reveal some truths in human psyche.

Maybe it will indeed take time to restore chaos. And that could be very important in life.

When we were born, everything was in chaos. You see, babies even don't know the boundaries of their body. Then, order comes to gradually, and you lose your rather precious chaos. As you grow older, things start to appear quite orderly, and you start to assume many things.

Those become your own prejudice, and restrain the freedom of your actions.

Being creative often means and requires restoring some chaos in your life. Breaking the status quo requires a fresh start. Chaos brings about the much needed unbounded air in which we can freely breathe at last.

I am not claiming that when Mr. Bush said "it will take time to restore chaos", he was dropping a word of wisdom. What the heck. Sometimes we can learn things from those people who might not have the slightest idea what the deep significances might be. That's the beauty of (mis)communication.

4 comments:

Yuzu said...

Dear:r.Mogi
Thank you for wisdom always.
I sometimes try to intensive keeping everything in order in normal life. (Because it is sometimes like a very very small chaos.) Then I find a better context and start it.

renpoo said...

Good allegorical article.

But I seem to have a different thought on "the universe itself has either order or chaos" from Zen Buddist point of view.

I think you will answer about this point automatically in the final reply to Mr. SAITO, Tamaki in your open correspondence. For now, I rather stand at Tamaki's side, from my a lot of experience as a real schizophrenie. I hope I can read your deep answer to him in near future.

Good luck!!

masami said...

Today is a special day for the qualia journal, isn't it ?
If so ...
Congratulations!

Greg said...

When I read you describe your friend and yourself as "liberal," it made me think about the connotation of the word, especially during the current election season in the U.S. For example, the two leading Republican party candidates for governor of California have been calling each other "more liberal" in their television commercials. Apparently, in the context of their target audience being "liberal" is not a good thing. It is interesting how the different aspects of context can inform the interpretation of a word.