Some people think that life’s random.
It certainly appears that way at times.
There are others, the Creationists, that have the believe and faith that what happens is all part of the bigger plan, still part of the creation and beyond. The same people also believe that the world is roughly 6000 years old and that Darwin is a bit of a twit who had it all wrong.
There’s the rational group that thinks that the enlightenment period surely was the beginning of rational answers and that randomness would eventually be explained by the more understandable processes of cause and effect.
There’s the chaos theorists who say that life might appear random but that it’s really not. That all is guided and made by distinctive patterns that are often covert, but also distinct.
For this group, an equilibrium is the expression of the highest state of disorder.
Although emotionally and semantically I disagree, I can see their point.
To me an equilibrium signifies a state of balance and relative calm.
A chaos theorist would have it that all chaos has gone before the equilibrium and that the equilibrium is the final expression of the process of disorder.
Apparently all and sundry can be explained by this theory. Economics, population growth, the fall of nations, how termites live their daily life.
At times I also think that life seems pretty random. How did I arrive where I am now?
People are quite a predictable species though.
We like to think of ourselves as being interesting (and we are) and that we really enjoy change and variety (and we do). But underneath it all, we are very much reliant on routines.
Not much different to what one sees in the animal kingdom.
Many people rarely change their breakfast – sometimes for years.
When I first arrived here (in our new flat) I thought that what was going on around me was also pretty random.
A bird sings here, a pig grunts there, a sheep has something to bleat about at unpredictable times of the day.
But I’m starting to notice the emergence of distinctive patterns.
Ok, the sun rises every day (nothing new, and thankfully so).
But at dawn and sunrise something predictable happens underneath all the noise of the waking world.
Certain animals make predictable noises.
There’s the rooster (no need to write what he does). Than there’s the other birds…tweet tweet…enough said.
And then there’s this pigeon.
It likes a certain tree and has a very monotonous call that is a bit like chinese water torture.
It starts out subtly, and then just goes on.
For weeks and weeks and weeks. Everyday, at a certain time, it calls it’s monotonous call. Then it stops. Suddenly.
The next morning it starts again.
Not only that, but it has a favourite tree that it loves to sit on while it coos.
Might be the view, or it might be the highest point around. Perhaps its position on the tree is reflective of its status amongst its pigeon peers (I hear some birds are quite hierarchical).
Not sure, but the bird certainly is predictable and seems to love the pattern and repeatability of its life.
I’m getting to like this rather ‚boring‘ pigeon. Life looks pretty easy for this bird.
Maybe there are still lessons to be learned from the critters around us that sort of get lost when one assimilates into the bigger cities.
Anyway, enough of my personal low level and random philosophising…here’s the pigeon: