One of my favorite books is ‘night’ by Elie Wiesel. A autobiography about him surviving a nazi concentration camp.
The subject matter of the book was not what got me interested. I was actually quite resistant to reading this book because of the intense subject matter. If a friend whose taste in books I trusted hadn’t urged me to read it I never in a million years would have bothered with it.
But in the very first sentence of ‘Night’ I was entirely hooked and I never put it down.
Not because of what was happening in the book. It was in spite of what was happening I was hooked because it was so well written.
What makes a book well written? I’ve never known that I’ve only had a sense that a book is well written. But I now have an idea what it is precisely.
It is the use of chaos.
Writing a book about surviving a concentration camp would not be an easy thing. It would be an incredibly difficult thing to do.
Not because of trauma or emotion but because of the chaos. With so much experienced and so much effort expended just to not die there becomes so much to choose from and so many questions to ask that it will create chaos.
And that is precisely the beauty of night, the incredible organizing and structuring of chaos.
Elie Wiesel himself accounts to how many times he tried to write a book about his experiences in a concentration camp and how many times and decades he failed.
It was his wife that eventually helped him sort out his experiences enough to write night and successfully finish it.
It is now a book heavily pushed in the school systems due to its subject matter but the writing itself, regardless of subject matter, deserves its nod.
Sorting that degree of chaos is not something many people accomplish.
With writing I’m also attempting to sort my own chaos. I’ve been trying since I was eight and each decade it gets simpler.
There is a math to chaos that makes it solvable.
Effort is limited. And it’s meant to produce a result that gains some sort of resource. If a large amount of effort is used and there is very little or no result that is chaos.
Chaos is an unpleasant place to be where reality is random and you have no effect on what will happen to you, no way to predict or prevent it. So all effort is spent on surviving the next moment and zero effort is spent on producing a result.
Because in chaos there are no results. There’s too much confusion so everything is random.
When there’s no result, there’s no resources. Nothing is produced. Nothing is solved and chaos continues.
One way to avoid the accumulation of chaos is to keep things simple and easy to accomplish.
Start the organization at the most basic level so that as you expand out unsolved problems don’t accumulate and start to create overwhelm and confusion.
If I’m writing a short story for example I want to keep the math simple. One, one and one equals three. One character. One goal. One conflict. Simple things to accomplish. (I don’t do that by the way. I’m working on it. But I don’t do it yet)
If I want to save a certain amount of money I will also keep things simple. I will lower monthly bills in anyway that I can and make as much extra money as I can. I will be careful where I place the resources I do have.
If I want to lose weight I will lower my calories and make those calories as efficient as possible by eating the right foods and getting enough sleep and water.
And if I want to do all three of those things, write a short story, save money and lose weight I’m now starting to accumulate things that need my focus and my careful distribution of resources.
So I then am starting to build chaos if I keep taking on things I want to accomplish.
I have to start to prioritize.
And stop taking on more projects or more things to take care of.
Just in case it hasn’t become obvious, I got a dog.
If you’ve read my other blogs you know I wasn’t supposed to get a dog yet.
I was supposed to be a disciplined mother fucker that has their shit fully together before they get a dog.
I do not have my shit fully together.
I have my shit one quarter of one quarter of the way together. Not one eighth. There’s a quarter of a full, I have a quarter of that quarter.
Which means to say I’m no longer insane. I’ve gotten over my insanity, I function and I’m learning and I’m growing but I’m quite far away from what I plan to be.
Getting a dog was insanely irresponsible and chaotic.
But in my defense Luna cheated a wee bit. (The dog’s name is Luna) she crawled right into my lap and wouldn’t move. Then she jumped into my car and would not get out.
I had no choice. She chose to be my dog.
Oh. And that’s Kodiak. My other dog.
The puppy I went to look at and buy when Luna assaulted me with affection and forced her way into my home.
Luna is Kodiak’s sister from a previous litter, she got returned to the breeder that sold me Kodiak.
So yes.
I call her looney Luna. And I call him Kodiak the manic.
Chaos is fun sometimes.
