Order and Chaos are strange bedfellows. They are more entangled than we wish, leaving a fine line to divide them.

As I relax on a chair in the quiet warmth of window light, I am brought to the realization that what I sit on are just atoms arranged in sequence to create what we know as a chair. The same is true for everything in the universe.

The planet I am on, born out of chaos, is spinning at about 1000 mph near the equator while orbiting at 67,000 mph around a white dwarf burning ball of gas powered by nuclear fusion, all while our solar system is orbitng within the Milky Way galaxy at 514,000 mph. Insane as those numbers are, it still takes over 225 million years to make one revolution within the galaxy. Oh wait… add that our galaxy is moving through the universe at a rate of 1,200,000 mph due to expansion. Yet for all this chaos, gravity brings order to our experience.

Join me for a moment and ponder — what if chaos would replace order? If the atoms of this chair disband, even if for a microsecond — would I fall into the chair and become part of it? How would the atoms I am made of fuse together with the atoms of the chair when order returns? Would I still be me? If the planet stopped spinning, would the chaos of that event create winds near 1000 mph and walls of water that would be civilization altering?

It’s just water rushing over a ledge creating a chaotic wash. Right?