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Chaos and Order
by Jörg Zimmermann, perfumer and essayist, Germany
2002

Jean Ruiter´s series "The constructed Order" describes an experience,- something that all of us know and feel in some part of our lives. In this series, he forms wires into appearances of deformed kanji-signs and places them alone or in groups on the photograph. At first sight, it seems as if these letters would mean something to us, but soon we find out that there is no order within, our mind strives to understand, -all in vain... There is confusion, maybe chaos when we try to describe the formation of the wires: They have a beginning and an end, one may go this way or that way, along the wires, cross here, end there, or circle again...

In the background behind the disorganized structures lays another photograph that shows parts of nature or natural structures of trees, waterfalls or parks. It seems that nature is always present, despite of the disorder in front of it. We realize that nature is in a well order when looking at it closely and we tend to go there intuitively,- it remains peaceful and understandable with a certain pureness. Inside we know about the freshness of evolutionary nature and its inspiring romance. We are close to nature and are able to understand the formations, expressions and relations of nature, that call us to find for ourselves, an adequate way of living and understanding... -See the happiness of the birds, when their transparent soul is thrilled by nature and they cheerfully start to whistle.
Obviously, the photograph carries the conflict of chaos and order. Does the one belong to the other ? Does order need chaos, and chaos need order to exist. Can people choose to have chaos ? Rather they would want to choose order. There is order and it is significant that we explain it like this: In order to understand...we create sentences in which chains of words are combined together, by using our coordination-skills and sensitivity to produce atmosphere and senseful patterns. It´s a challenge to become more and more understandable to others, to express what is felt inside by searching for possible descriptions of what is carried as an experience. It is harder when one has very exciting experiences to share that others have not yet come across. The lack of experience is a lack of feelings that are ahead of the reason.

Chaos and evolution is always there and progresses from the more simple structures into the more complex ones. From wise and nature-loving forefathers into highly sophisticated technocrats of our days. That´s why human beings need more comprehensive ways of arranging complex things and to get them together. Humans unify what becomes too complex. Today there is a strong movement and unification in the world into one world aspect that we name globalisation. The survival of an idea by making it bigger... Within globalisation everything seems to become more simple by being ordered and organised in a specific way, e.g., color, strength, length, size, width...

It is a long evolutional past and faraway future when talking about chaos and order. You may feel that the world as it is, was created, formed its pattern and vivid life out of chaos.
A point of time in which the idea of the creative chaos became presence. It was formed as a manifestation of the chaotic experience. Some ideas that arose out of chaos were produced for the time being and not thought to be forever. But they had to be there in order to be built upon. There would have never been a consequence of thoughts and new ideas that the world or the human being transformed into his future, if there weren´t former structures and possibilities to be felt and foreseen. There would be sterility, a stillstand, if time and space stood still..

There is a centralization of interests within the organisation, that is used to make things more comprehensive to people. In a more complex world people are in search of usability in many fields and try to simplify their lifes by using convenient and quick communication,- we name it virtual reality. There seem to be no limits when people of one part of the world are connected to the rest of the world and receive information that even accelerates the chaotic growth of the globalisation. It´s the increasing speed of information and generalization that is to become a virtual chaos. The chaotic part hereby is its speed of exchange as it proceeds.

Chaos is also evolutionary: The genius uses his feelings to come across a new experience. He uses his world of chaotic brainstorming to define his feelings and the resulting vision. It´s his highly sensitive recognition that makes him feel in a certain way. He picks up emotions, compares the acting and habits of people around, asks his own inside and comes to an inner certainty in which he knows by intuition, that something will be.

Yet, it is a vague experience. It doesn´t exist, but there´s a certainty of thoughts and their consequences to be felt inside. The more sensitive, the more point of views and different explanations one has, the more life becomes colorful and vivid. Everything belongs together, like the appletree-experience that shows how chaos can be followed up to a certain point in time.

And that´s why the genius needs time and space to get assured of his feelings. Silence and quiet thoughts, in which his feelings become the guiding path and inner eye through the chaos of the world. When a human being is born, it is obvious that he already recognizes many appearances in the new world. Some specific experiences are already carried within and that is our personal heritage. Between chaos and order there is the soul that combines and also remembers things in a more understandable way than just the human mind. The soul is the essentiel provider of mysteries and wonder, in which a human being is touched and thrilled by a sudden vision.

The mind can´t just understand without the soul that provides certainty. We do not understand things that are bigger or smaller than within a certain perspective. We need a perspective that gives us the possibility to understand. Looking at the universe, it is very hard to understand the complexity and shape of its manifestations, if ever it exists...
Looking at a smaller structure, tiny bacterias and their behavior within the cells or within the human body, is also impossible without a special equipment. It remains chaotic until we approach in the right perspective. We try very hard to define the tiniest and the biggest which appears chaotic because of the wrong perspective. As human beings we are in between.

Our range of recognition is within a certain angle and we will always maintain our position, until we change it in creativity and step out of the limitation. It´s depending on our thoughts. The thought is very little in the beginning and grows while thinking it further on. And this is understood to be a transcendental way of thinking. It helps to understand the abstract components of life by looking behind the obvious and evident. And here, too, it is impossible to look behind, if you don´t use your soulfull finding and silent believe with confidence. To have a confidential way of looking at things, with the fearless conscsiousness of finding new, unknown aspects, makes curious. Being curious, while being silently confident, makes the things to become transcendental. The sharper and sensitive the recognition is, the more the senses will be steered by a clear thinking mind, which is inside, to the outside, and achieve a view of the whole.

Then there is no chaos anymore but adaptive recognition which absorbs, where a creative impulse sets in by being aesthetically comprehensive. It happens intuitively and at the very moment it can be experienced as a natural law of being right.

Chaos exists when we don´t know. It starts when the inside finds no equivalent outside. Obviously, chaos and the experience of chaos depends on the inner natural structure. One may feel fear when the inner structure is quite complex but he will never feel chaos until chaos gets more impulsive by following its own track of incidents.

Science tries to clear chaos by using reasonable descriptions of what is more or less a phenomenon. To understand the genius´s longing and range of thoughts it is necessary to know that knowledge does not only derive from scientific research. Scientists find descriptions where the genius sets an experience to achieve similar knowledge.

Creativity allows the genius to think out of the regular perspective. On one hand there is his sensitivity, on the other, there is his confidence and curiousity in the play of ideas and changes of angles to look at things. The creation in art is like the very creation, when the earth was formed by an evolutionary idea. Feelings, ideas, visions, atmospheres and nature´s experiences bring together what is inside the arena of the genius.

With the knowledge of nature´s expressions the genius understands much easier all kind of appearances, because they themselves are nature. Some of his ideas may not be understandable at first sight. And that´s why he uses his own natural way of description to clear things for himself and for others. It allows him to play with the forms. There is a relation between form, color, material, shapes, smell, sound and the visualization of an idea or a whole chain of thoughts. By going on and on and being open, the genius discovers a possible way to arrange his restless search into structures of descriptive order.

Many people feel secure when their life´s environment is well structured and their everyday-life is well ordered. They invent systems to protect their lifes from chaos. In this case, chaos occurs when something unexpected happens and they can´t cope with the experience. There is fear, there is helplessness, there is chaos. In a way, chaos is always present and within chaos, an impulse can change the whole direction of the ongoing. There is a certain latency of Chaos. Last year´s attacks on the WTC showed how fragile the structure of an order is, when you believe it´s secure and it would be reliable.

An unexpected impulse from outside could be the beginning of a catastrophee. This is the threat of the future, that global structures are disturbed by a sudden impulse from outside. After the attacks of september 11, 2001, there was mutual understanding of the industrialized nations in the world and everybody felt the sudden chaos that arose. Nothing remained the same. The more globalization, the more chaos can flow over to all connected people and countries and initialize hysterical reactions. The problem is, that even if all have the same information, every nation and its people understand it differently, depending on the culture and the language they obtain. There may be misunderstandings that are immense and create chaos without leaving time and space to bring it back into order, because by then it would already be everywhere.

In the end the remaining hope is nature in which a spiritual path will guide us towards our destiny. After a struggling search for order inside, we may find a hidden blue flower one day. She will be swaying and have a blooming smile on her face. And suddenly we will find certainty of knowing that the longing and the peace within ourselves, could finally be met and felt as pure humanity and safety.

2002 Jörg Zimmermann, Baden-Baden.