Living in a non-linear world

(part two of Dealing with King Chaos)

by Frank van Empel

’We have to deal with the world as we find it,’ David Axelrod, President Obama’s top political advisor said two weeks after the Democrats lost their power in the House of Representatives. The World Obama finds is the world we all are living in for already a pretty long time. It’s a non-linear world: irregular, unstable and chaotic. Not the kind of place where parents want their children to go.

The traditional, romantic wisdom is that in the past we were better of. The world was not overcrowded and people were no slaves of Mr. Greed and Mrs. Jealousy. We all lived in a State of Nature. Nature, undisturbed by human influence, was characterised by a certain kind of harmony, balance and order.

During the last three centuries we found out that this whole image is false. If there is a State of Nature, then it’s a State that is characterised by disequilibrium, differences, defects and mutations. Nature is, and always was, in a continuing state of disturbance and fluctuation. Change and turmoil is the rule.

The house we all live in shows such an example of apparent linearity: the human body. Let’s take a look in the Masters Room: the heart, which has an eternal triangle with blood and brain. It exports adrenaline (a hormone) to the blood and imports acetylcholine (a neurotransmitter) from the brain. Adrenaline speeds up the heart rate and activates the emotional brain. Acetylcholine slows down both. In other words: the heart has an accelerator and a brake. We need both functions for cornering through the unpredictable angles of life. Stress, fear, depressions and rage stimulate the production of adrenaline. Pleasure, sympathy, gratitude and nice thoughts give way to a relaxed heartbeat.

Accelerating and slamming on the brakes are irregular activities. The breaks between two heartbeats differ.
When the rhythm of the heart is completely regular, alarm bells should start to ring. It’s the signal for a heart attack in the making. Exactly the opposite of what one would expect.
(to be continued)