CHAOS THEORY MUST OF
course flow impurely. “Lazy yokel plows
a crooked furrow.” Any attempt to precipitate
a crystal of ideology would result in flawed rigidness,
fossilizations, armorings & drynesses, which
we would like to renounce,
along with all “purity.”

Yes, Chaos revels in a certain abandoned formlessness
not unlike the erotic messiness of those we love
for their shattering of habit
& their unveiling of mutability

(Nevertheless this looseness
does not imply that Chaos Theory must accept
every leech that attempts to attach itself
to our sacred membranes.)

We propose not an Inquisition
in the name of our definitions,
but rather a duel, a brawl,
an act of violence or emotional repugnance,
an exorcism.

But first we’d like to
define & even name our enemies:

a. All those death-heads & mutilation artists
who associate Chaos exclusively with misery,
negativity & a joyless pseudo-libertinism,
those who think “beyond good & evil” means doing evil,
crooners of the apocalypse, –the new Gnostic Dualists,
world haters & ugly nihilists…

b. All those who appropriate chaos
in the cause of a New Age scam.

You can’t sell water by the river;
Chaos is that materia of which
the alchemists spoke, which fools value
more highly than gold
even tho it may be found
on any dungheap.

The battle lines are drawn. Chaos is not entropy,
Chaos is not death, Chaos is not a commodity.
Chaos is continual creation.
Chaos never died.

T.A.Z. the Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism by Hakim Bey, Special Communique, A.O.A Announces Purges in Chaos Movement, page 59

Saturday morning. So, what crazy-assed thinking are you putting out there now?  An imaginary reader thinks to him/herself when reading the intro line or two of this quotation. In a spirit of taking a break from Nietzsche, and his dark reputation I offer segments from a slim book first published in 1985.

Why do I find the content compelling, worthy of consideration? Because Bey suggests an improved basis for life, for living. What is “Chaos”? Defining the meaning of this foundation principle seems “wrong footed.”  Like taking a freeze frame photograph of a ZO 6 Corvette as it slings out of the turn, engine singing a baritone note, sound and sensation of power transferred to asphalt on the long straight-away… No photograph ever would define the experience… You’d have to be there, in the drivers seat! Then you’d know.

Chaos is similar to the Tao, the centerpiece of the Tao Te Ching, a collection of meditations written by Lao Tsu in the 3rd or 4th century BCE. Chaos is nothing new.  

Chaos is opposed to a notion of some essence anchoring “reality.” Chaos thinking is anti-dogma. (all and every dogma)

Chaos is not about unbounded permission to do whatever one pleases. On the other hand, conventional morality, is regarded as provisional, as inherited to be held loosely, very loosely.

Chaos harkens back to old Heraclitus of Ephesus, the Greek philosopher of early 5th century BCE.  He said, τὰ πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει, roughly translated, “everything changes, and nothing remains.”

Enough said about this for now. Here are some examples of Chaos imperfectly, inadequately expressed by these photographs.