I remember my dad loved tools. He loved getting and having fancy power tools, and had a tool bench in the garage equipped with gadgets that could potentially build anything or fix any household problem. Unfortunately, the problem we had in our household could not be fixed with these tools. Hand drills could not heal intergenerational trauma resulting from violence, war, and loss of culture. Electric sanders could not provide a restful night of sleep for the overworked. Chisel sets could not chip away the grief of ungrieved losses.
The tool bench, like most surfaces in our home, was with stacked with piles. Useful things, obsolete things, meaningful-to-only-one-person things. Travel mementos. Magazines for lifetimes of entertainment, learning or collaging. Small jars with biohazard labels (“souvenirs” from medical procedures.)
I took great pride in the fact that my house was so strange, and that we as a family were a bit strange. But like all emotional things left undone, the stuff in our home took up space. The piles held vestiges of the past, and day-in and day-out they whispered: What’s the point?
What’s the point of cleaning when it will just get messy again?
What’s the point of trying if you keep failing?
What's the point of loving when life is so full of losses?
What’s the point of working toward justice when there is so much suffering?
I recently learned about the concept of entropy in physics. Basically, this means that the universe began as a highly ordered system and since the Big Bang, has been moving more and more toward chaos, or more accurately, a more evenly distributed array of matter and energy. (Counterintuitively, a uniform energy state is more “chaotic” because it has moved from a configuration that holds energy in closer orientation and spreads out from there. Like, imagine the Big Bang was just a massive fart that is spreading.)
This is oddly comforting to me. Somehow, knowing that all things moving toward chaos is the natural state of the Universe, takes some pressure off. It makes sense.
Things are becoming chaotic, and meanwhile……. This decay continues to occur with elegant forms, organized into innumerable manifestations, from galaxies to fiddleheads, cheetahs to clouds. The exact same amount of matter and energy in entropy is doing some crazy creative shit over time.
Creating art or music or anything, brings order to chaos. The moment of conception brings order to a system which is simultaneously decaying. The moment a bell is rung a sound is born then goes gradually back to silence.
So what’s the point? To have a healthy relationship with entropy and chaos?
Maybe.
Back to the tool bench.
What I see in all the clutter and the unused tools on my dad’s tool bench is the desire to create and heal, to cultivate some kind of order amongst chaos. Creative energy is the will to exist, our soul’s memory of where it came from. While the universe is decaying, we’re participating in a magnificent display of creative splendor. If only we can keep ourselves from despair. If only this creative expression is nurtured and supported.
What we need is the right tools for the jobs at hand. Soul tools I’ll call them. If you’re here to build, you need building tools. If you’re here to heal, you need healing tools. We also need the right teachers and guides.
We all know the line, if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Maybe if getting hammered and nailed isn’t working for you, you might want to find some new tools.
Could this be a Life on Earth: Nailed it! moment? Maybe Hammer pants could come back into style.
This post is descending into chaos.. I’ll leave it there.
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