Welcome Chaos

I am heartened to observe that the greatest artists and philosophers emerge, not during periods of social stability, but precisely when cultures fragment and decline.

It is not equilibrium but the broken symmetry of the unbalanced equation that engenders creativity. Inspiration never comes through the entropy of even redistribution, or the imposition of equality. Wisdom does not emerge from a flat-line of social conformity, but from the purifying flame of chaos.

Lao T'zu wrote the Tao Te Ching as he abandoned a rotting empire. The Renaissance was an age of political mayhem and petty violence between city states. The "Golden Age of Athens" was not a respite of social harmony, but a series of plagues, wars, and dictatorships, when the best men were hastily imprisoned or exiled.

Beauty is born when wise souls embrace the clash of opposites. Great leaders speak in paradox, not platitude. There is no need to flee from conflict: conflict invokes the Witness, and awakens the very space that contains it. Even the most terrible crisis - even your death, your birth - is enfolded by a stillness, filled with the breath of stars.