i'd like to write about chaos. it is something that has been on my mind for some time now. the delightful rapture of chaos, the grand splendor of relinquishing control, the reveling in the power of destruction. it amuses me as a concept but it is something im deeply addicted to as a person. i need a weekly dose of total chaos. i just don't jive well with prolonged periods of stability. i become too predictable. i loose the ability to surprise myself. so every now and then I have to raise the bar and do something I normally wouldn't allow myself to do. also chaos becomes an emergency exit in times of depression. harnessing the wave of chaos and letting it crush you to the ground is an act of personal disintegration. whoever you were you are no longer in the throes of the destructive force. in the vortex you are constantly being torn apart and put together in new ways. if who you are is causing some sort of stuckness it is all washed away by the wave of chaos. whatever life was, whatever the world meant, it is forgotten and the slate is yet again wiped clean. this way we can erase and re-write ourselves anytime we wish. oblivion is an arms length away. the secret is that oblivion is disguised rebirth. the trick is to have many rebirths, to be something new all the time, to be in continuous movement toward that higher potential. somewhere out there is a new and better you. you just have to die in order to find out who that is.
the chinese have an old saying that you can't fill a cup that is already full. to me this is a way of saying how destruction and creation really are the same thing. wherever there is creation, there has been destruction. in this regard it is not surprising to see that rock'n'roll entered the world stage at the very time it did. in a sense, it was a warning signaling the arrival of another pace of change. everything was up in the air. rules were being re-written. ray davies from the kinks took a knife and cut up the membrane on his guitar amplifier and so created the first distorted guitar sound, the very hallmark of rock music. to me personally, rock'n'roll has always been the soundtrack of puberty. it represents an uprising, an overthrowing of the established order. but somehow rock music does more than represent chaos; it is embodied, manifest, living chaos. it's very soundwaves are active agents of destruction and disintegration.
being pounded by a hundred decibel of twisted heavy metal phatness at a metal concert is a thrilling experience because you who are is being bent in strange directions. the music is re-shaping your sense of self. if you are not clinging too hard to a particular sense of self the soundwaves might destabilize your familiar way of seeing yourself and send you tumbling down the road toward self-immolation. if you let the sound take you, if you go with it where it wants to go, you might just experience the ecstatic moment of perfect self-destruction. this is one of the most beautiful things that can be experienced.
but it can be hardly said to happen to anyone. in the moment of perfect self-destruction there is no room for the self you think you are. if you are still focused on the fact that this experience is happening to you then your focus is not entirely, wholly, absolutely transfixed on the process itself. when the process is all there is, when there is no world, no person, no time, then a miracle is likely to happen. at this point the person has sacrificed himself to a higher cause; the higher cause of participating in the creative birth of the universe. the universe, if it represents anything, is a form of play, self-expression, dance, art. the nature of the universe is playful self-realization. the game which the universe is playing is a game of hide and seek. slowly, stage by stage, it is revealing to itself what it really is. offered to the person is an open invitation to join in the ecstatic dance of all that is. except that no person can dance that dance. the person can only be danced. and if he lets himself be danced by the playful impulse of creation he is a participant in the symphony that is our universe. it is impossible for a person to be a conscious participator of universal creation because the person has no room, has no available space, to grasp the magnitude of this simple notion. his cup is full. but we have methods of overcoming this. this is why we have techniques for paralyzing the ego.
where the curtain of the ego is pulled back, the cosmos is revealed.
