Chaos.

My natural state.

Chaos is my natural state.

I wasn’t born into chaos. I was born, at least in theory, into the opposite. Two parents. Two siblings. A dog, most of the time. Water that always ran. Heat that always warms. AC that always cooled. Food on the table. A bed that was slept in. Homework that was done. Grades that were earned. A life that was lived. This is what most people want, and where most people thrive.

I am not most people.

Running alongside the opposite of chaos, the perfection of outward life, was the equivalent of a spinning top. When you first start spinning it, it’s tight. Perfect. Unflappable. But, as time goes on, as the natural centripetal forces and gravitational pull begin to weigh it down, it starts to shake. Unravel. Flinch. Come back down to Earth.

It’s here where I thrive.

I love when things begin to unravel. I love when other people begin to flinch. I love when the loftiness of the arrogance of people’s peace begins to crash down to earth. Not because I’m a sadist, but because I know this is where most people cannot take life. I know that this is where most will burn out, fail, and beg for mercy. I know it is in the in-between that most people can’t deal with.

But I can.

Most people believe themselves to be afraid of failure. This is a lie. Most people are afraid of the uncertainty, the in-between, the chaos, the storm. They don’t like not knowing, the loss of control, the feeling of the floor slipping underneath their feet. They have worked hard to do things the right way, to do as the world has told them to do, to obey. When you obey, you’re supposed to win.

How naive.

The ways of life are won in the chaos. When you don’t know what to do. When you don’t have control. When you feel the floor slipping underneath your feet. When you realize that doing things the “right way” is actually wrong. When you realize the world has told you to obey them on things that it itself does not know. When you realize that, when you obey the ways of the world, you always lose. Most people are afraid of these realizations.

But I’m not.

I was not born into chaos. But I sought it. I sought it because, whenever chaos arose, it was I who had to be the glue. To fill in the cracks. To be the one whose hand did not shake. To be the man, the person who, no matter what, could not falter. Initially, I was scared. I’m too young, I thought. Someone else should have to do this, I said. Please make it stop, I begged.

But no one heard me.

People like me, the in-betweeners, have one job- right the ship. Get out of the storm. Bring the world back into order. Create order from the chaos. Renegotiate peace with the world around you as it falls into dysregulation. No one is ever inherently good at this. We’re not MEANT to be inherently good at this. But over time, you learn. You learn how to right the ship. To get out of the storm. To bring the world back into order. To create order from chaos. To renegotiate peace with the dysregulated world around you.

But that doesn’t mean I liked it.

In fact, I hated it. I STILL hate it. I don’t like the calm. I’m not good at keeping calm. I’m not made for peace. I’m made for war. I don’t know how to engage with a peaceful world. A peaceful world, to me, is a weak world. A soft world. A world that does not exist, that does not communicate reality with those who live within its confines. A trap waiting to be sprung, a bottom waiting to fall out, a text waiting to be sent, a shot waiting to be fired. I do not wait well. I would rather spring the trap. Go on offense. Disrupt the peace so that I can have the war that I want to wage.

Peace is my enemy.

It’s why I love the storm. The storm comes in the in-between. The chips aren’t down yet. But they’re waiting to be laid down. That means there’s still time. Not time for peace, but time to wage war. There’s just enough time left. I can make a move. I can get ahead of the game. I can intimidate, force its hand, brace myself for impact, get inside the head of chaos before it, inevitably, strikes.

I was made for the storm.

Not many people are. But I am.

I suppose it’s much easier to be made for the storm’s eye, or to be out of the storm entirely. It probably feels a lot more safe. And it might BE a lot more safe. The people outside of the storm, outside of the chaos, do not have uncertainty weighing on their soul. They do not have to contend with the demons that drag the fragility of reality back down to earth. They do not worry about the chaos to come because they’re so consumed with their own false sense of security.

By contrast, I always feel like I’m on fire.

Everything is always falling apart. Something is always breaking. Everything is always moving. Nothing is ever stagnant. To not be vigilant, to wait for life to happen, to invoke calm, is to take my guard down. To make myself vulnerable. To let the world know that it can finally have its way with me, whatever that way might be. I’m constantly waiting on the other shoe. Because there is always, without a shadow of a doubt, another shoe.

But the fire keeps me warm.

For that reason, I like the fire. It’s always hot, but it’s never NOT hot. The consistency of the fire is what I enjoy. For that reason, I don’t mind the heat. I don’t mind that I burn myself far more than I should. I don’t mind that I can’t turn down the heat. I never want the heat turned down. The heat is always there. The heat is what I can always rely on. It’s much better than the lies of peace, the lies of safety, the lies that the world has forever peddled to me, only to walk back seconds after it inevitably betrays me- because of course it does. I like the fire, cannot live without the fire, for one reason, and one reason alone:

I’ve never known any other way.

But yet, an irony emerges. Even though I was made for war, made to be a punching bag for the world, made to be someone who takes a sickening amount of pain, I do, at a deep level, crave something else. I crave the ability to relax. I yearn for the ability to unbrace myself for impact. To unstiffen my neck. To relax my shoulders. To take my tongue off the roof of my mouth. To allow myself to sink back into a chair. To finally take a deep breath without caring if someone will do something to take my breath away right in the middle of it.

I don’t want my life to blow up.

So I take the liberty of blowing it up myself.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), I feel far more uncomfortable NOT blowing up my life. As long as I’m the one doing it, fine by me. Rest is impossible. Fatigue is out of the question. Everything must be in motion. Rest does not exist, for me, for my friends, and for my enemies. This is how I feel. This is how I am.

I am chaos. I am the storm. I am havoc.

Why? Because it’s the only way I know how to be. To be useful. To be someone people can depend on. To be the rock. To be The Man. To be the person I’ve always wanted to be. Strong. Capable. Powerful. Enough. Many people can get these feelings from many things, many EASIER things, than these. Sometimes, I envy these people.

But on a sicker, more twisted plane- I don’t.

Not many people can be chaotic. Not many people can live where I live. Most would run. Most would cower. All would fade away. But not me. I have become so immersed in this state of mind that I have become one with it. If I am not in the storm, I am uncomfortable. I am uneasy.

Controlled chaos is what I seek, where I live, and why I thrive.

But controlled chaos is also where I destroy any chance I have of what I have always wanted- the ability to be at peace. At rest. At home. Enough. I have been given plenty of chances to accept them all. To invite them in. To allow them to settle into my brain, my blood, my bones, my Being. But, every time, I do not allow it. The chaos inside me will not allow me to.

I destroy these things because I constantly seek to destroy myself.

Happy people do not destroy their own happiness. They do not invite chaos in. They do not let storms rage. They quiet them. They do everything they can to renegotiate peace with the world. Most people cannot live without peace. They cannot live where I live. They cannot do what I do to myself. They cannot bear the thought of peace leaving them, much less destroying it out of their own fear.

But I do.

I am destroyed. The thing I destroy is myself. Every wrong decision. Every mistake. Every missed opportunity. Every wrong thing heard, said, or thought. They haunt me. They agonize me. They terrorize me. I cannot live with these things. The only way I know how to evict them is to purge them. To purge these things, I cannot rest. I cannot give up an inch. I can never surrender. I must always be on guard. Not against any enemy. That would be far easier. But against myself- the chaos that defines me.

I would do anything for it to not be so. I want to rest. I want to relax. I want to have peace.

I deeply wish I was not this way.

But alas, that day is not today.

Own the Day,

Sam