Letters to Myself: Entry Sixty-Five
Prompt: What would it look like to stop apologizing for the chaos and start asking what it's trying to make?
“One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to dancing star.”
A reflection based on the idea of controlling your dark matter; turn that energy into something that is productive and helpful for the fellow humans around you. That dark matter that exists in all of us, should not be used to create chaos in the world; it should be used to find more peace.
I think the more I reflect on this question, the more I am seeing the chaos in my life that I am definitely finding more control over. The world will make sure the emotional states we experience in many possible ways that might seem unexplainable. Even just witnessing people in public, there is a sense of maddening nature that seems to be the rhetoric going around. People will talk very poorly of others that might have hurt them; people will get angry in the car when someone cuts them off instead of finding the control to not do anything; maybe its an argument that ends in a ending of a relationship. I believe it is important to find a sense of controlling your chaos that is always within you, and yes, sometimes you have to let it out. You have to let people know around you that you have a dark side; but allow that dark side to show others that you are a serious being; a being that is not meant to be messed with on a physical, mental and spiritual level.
When one reads many of these powerful thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche, you start to notice the patterns in the world, especially those with those darker elements. You can pinpoint it in a matter of seconds; and it is very freeing and strategic way to get you on board on how to maintain and control your inner citadel. One will find the flow of letting out that nature that is inside of you; one must find that stance of firmness, steadiness and courage. People are mean, people are awful, people are misguided; but more importantly, people are really obsessed with themselves. This is where one can precisely pierce their shields and find that weak spot in them to call them out; to know that you are seeing the chess board clear as day, and that is how you can let out that chaos inside of you in that exact, important moment.
One of the examples of my life I have had to understand or grow to become a more confident standing person is not always apologizing for everything I do. And remember that forgiveness is necessary to find peace; however, you don’t always need to say sorry for some things that might not have been your fault; and sometimes when it is your fault, you don’t have to apologize how a conversation went down, how someone felt towards you or you towards someone else. When you have to say sorry, remember that it should be coming from the heart completely. Don’t say sorry just to say sorry because we are Minnesotan, or wherever you may come from.
But this also goes for that chaos nature we all have. That is exactly why it is a growing world of chaos at the current moment as I write this. As I have been able to confirm this notion. Aspects of life are expensive; they are emotional; they are devastating; they are sorrow-filled. All of which encompass the emotional rollercoaster we all go through in the human condition. But that is where you have to maneuver that chaos and channel it into something productive. Offer that chaos nature outward; whether that is helping someone move; whether it is doing yard work or doing harder physical projects; whether it is channeling that dark energy into volunteering for an organization or giving back to a community in need. When you channel that negative energy and only reduce it to aggression and not find the controls of it, it will end relationships; it will make you feel like a pile of trash; it will make you want to not want to be here anymore.
It is important to remember that when you are having a headache, when you are experiencing all kinds of emotions inside of you that might be that dark matter, you have to grab hold and not let it go out of control. That is when the series of events that you will most likely regret later will come to fruition. Most of the time this will happen. We have friends who will give up on you, friends you thought might be your friends, but when they inevitably make you upset for something they did, especially to you, that is when you have to take the high road and not to allow that dark matter to make you into a person that society wants you to become.
One must resist the temptation of going down this route; even with it being something that comes out naturally. You must become more aware. When you become more aware, you catch yourself saying the terrible things; the things you would not want your children to know about. The things that seep out into the world and give others a chance to act more poorly. When one does not control their chaos, it will be the domino effect you don’t want to happen. In fact, a friend of mine was telling me about instances on car driving. They were saying that road rage has gone to a new level. Where people will pull out weapons on those simply driving on the road. That is insane, and something we should not allow to take hold of us. That is anger-filled emotions that are controlling the individual to do such terrible acts against humanity; the very thing all of us don’t want to happen.
But in that instance, when you catch the aggression that high, you know not to interact with it; you know that you have to avoid it or maneuver around it; when you see that behavior you just want to make sure you are not doubling down on that nature; that you are not making yourself become more angry in the process. That is when you simply need to ask, if I had a child in the car, is that something they would want to see you be doing? Is that the behavior we want our offsprings to see and understand and replicate? Of course not. That is not being a precious human.
Human behavior can be controlled when one allows for it to happen. We tend to live in our own heads more often than not and when that dark matter eventually brews to the surface, we have to find the courage to resist. We have to find the courage to stop and ask, why am I feeling this way? When one pauses and finds the ability to reject the domino effect, you are controlling the dark matter. That is when you are reading the chess board clearly. You play your hand the way you can and move forward. One can actually find another play that might be more important; understanding the situation and making sure you are confident in your response. Whether that be aggressive or not; when you are able to resist and catch yourself before acting, that is where the best possible answer comes through. One can guide that madness in them, morph it into something that is productive and gives you purpose. That while being upset about something not going your way is totally understandable, but when you are able to stop and say, this happened and what is possible now? That is when you are able to figure out that next step in the journey we are all walking. Control the aggression so you come out of the situation more clearer and understanding than those who simply act on their impulses and tend to not sit with things. Be patient, it might just make you feel better and control the thing you never thought you could control.
Main thought: Control that dark matter inside of you to guide it towards something productive. Don’t let it consume you into something you don’t want to become. That is what negative energy does; don’t always lean in when you don’t have too.
This post is part of my "Letters to Myself" series — a weekly free-write blog where I explore personal growth, curiosity, and healing through simple prompts. Sometimes reflective, sometimes fun, but always real. Thank you for being here.
References:
Photo by Kyle Gare
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883)
