These are pretty hectic times. Actually, every time is hectic. But today the cacophony is audible everywhere, and nonstop – there is no escaping it.
We hear about all the crazy things happening in our world and it feels like things are falling apart. “The more complicated the world becomes, the more ways things could go wrong.” That seems to be the storm cloud we live under today. I guess it is true, in a simplistic sort of way.
If we are talking about the fate of the world however, then “complicated” and “wrong” should be more clearly defined. Does wrong mean catastrophically wrong? Or is it more like, when you have more things, there’s more things that can break, but on the other hand, each individual thing is less important?
In other words, it’s unclear if it matters that the more complicated the world is, the more ways things could go wrong. In a complicated world many, many things are going on all at once. In that case, the amount of things going wrong is massively outnumbered by all the things going right – or things just going.
Our bodies are made of trillions of cells, themselves driven by millions of chemical reactions happening every second. None of these cells is following a script. They’re not under anyone’s control. They are simply doing their thing, responding to stimuli and opportunities both internal and external. But by doing their thing, they are inadvertently contributing to a process going on that is vastly bigger than them.
I don’t think it is a stretch to compare the chaos that runs our bodies to the chaos that moves the world. The world is out of our control. This was always true, but now we know it, and are reminded of it daily. But try not to let it frighten you. Instead, embrace it. It is not as bad as you think. In fact, it’s OK. Maybe even great.