Assignment 7

Ordered Chaos - Does This Sound Familiar?

Yes it does. This reminds me of the process that I undertake when writing a paper. I am always overwhelmed by too many ideas and a feeling that I simply will not be able to organize them in a way that will result in something intelligible. My process is very unstructured. I simply start writing. I get a few paragraphs which come together until I am moved to follow a certain direction. Then, I write some more and sometimes my direction changes. I write a lot of stuff down, reorganized it and re- read it. I do this over and over again. I simply cannot rest until the thing is finished. By the time I have completed it, I feel good.

Fractals As Patterns of Complex Systems

As I understand it, a fractal is a geometric shape they can be divided into parts, each of which is a reduced size copy of the whole. They are inordinately complex because at all levels of magnification they appear the same. In nature, fractals appear in clouds, mountain ranges, and snowflakes. Straight lines are not fractals even though one part of the line is just like the whole. I think the reason for this is because it is one-dimensional. Not sure.

Consciousness Out Of Chaos

I'm not sure where I'm supposed to go with this question, so I am going to talk about the way I personally relate to chaos. Well, I don't handle it very well. I have a very strong internal need for order. This started from a very early age. I can remember, as a young girl in first grade, planning how I was going to organize my desk or clean my room. I would actually have a premeditated plan for how I was going to go about it and then I would do it. I didn't need any prompting for my mom, I just liked to create organized spaces.

I still love to organize and throw things away. I don't like clutter because I find I can relax more easily without it. I don't need a lot of stuff. I don't like to have too many clothes in my closet, for example, because it makes it too complicated to get dressed. At least three times a year I give stuff away just so I can create more empty space in my home. This makes me feel lighter in my mind. I can think more clearly about things that matter to me when I don't have a lot of unnecessary stuff to contend with.