How to manage chaos in whatsapp groups?
Chaos and Order are the yin and yang of life, but it can be exhausting to balance the two. Throughout my life, I have spent much of my time in the unknown chaotic realm and occasionally visited the real world, bringing with me the thoughts chaos has bestowed upon me. I converted these thoughts into words and articulated them, only to be viewed as an alien. “You are creative, but this is not the place. Out here, you don’t have to think; you just need to follow instructions,” was the first serious advice I got from my colleagues back in the eighties.
For the next four decades, I was told this in many different ways, and as much as I resisted it, I knew it was true. The trait of openness to new things seems to be in direct conflict with conscientiousness which relies on order and in stabilising the environment. Conscientiousness people strive for order, they want to dispel chaos and uncertainty to the point of regulating speech. Does that mean chaotic people are evil or not good? The creative types have been in the vanguard of human development. Sparrows don’t seem to be creative; their house design has been the same for millions of years. Industrious as they are, they have stagnated.
In the context of social media, how can we balance the yin and yang of order and chaos? The most boring life would be scrolling through a WhatsApp group with hard-nosed people sharing prim and proper posts. We need those little surprises and disruptions. Once in a while, someone comes out of the woodwork and provides it for us. That disruption and chaos. We wake up with a start rub our eyes to figure out what the fuck is going around. In shock our brain goes into fight or flight mode.
Life is about hitting the sweet spot between Chaos and Order. In that intersection, you will find heaven. Broad and well paved is the path that leads to hell the path to heaven is narrow.
Dr. Abraham Verghese is an author I admire greatly. I immersed myself in his debut novel, Cutting for Stone, and I would rate him as one of the best authors. I just read his interview in The Hindu today (7th May 2023).
Here is the last question asked to him by the interviewer
Q: Your thoughts on the recent trend of rewriting books to purge them of offensive or racist words?
A: It is a tricky thing. How far back do you go to correct the ills of humans against humans? I sort of object to censorship in any form unless it is truly inciting violence or something like that. I think we are seeing a disturbing trend, not just of political correctness in terms of removing objects from the past, but the other way around where we are warring about what our children are exposed to and banning books. If you don’t like it, don’t read it.
