chaos

You have probably been there.  Thoughts surface to your consciousness which may not have been suppressed but had been just lurking.  Then they surface.  As if some storm has entered your head, some confluence of this and that has disrupted the terrain and now, cerebral junk impedes your daily activity.  Our physical and psychological maneuverings are infected.   And the result is that in your head, at least, there is chaos such that it is tough to do what you do effortlessly during a normal period.

It occurs when someone you love tells you, explicitly or otherwise, that you are no longer in the picture.  It happens at work, when you are told you have failed or sense it yourself and you wonder why in the world anyone would hire you.  It happens when someone dies or becomes incapacitated, someone who was a part of your foundation, and you realize how important was that floorboard of your life.  There is chaos.

Extrapolating from chaos theory one can assume that such periods are predictable in that they are inevitable, and that the result of chaos can actually be something positive or at least something that provides a new opportunity.  Yet when you are swamped by chaos the wisdom of chaos theory cannot gain entrance to the miserable conditions within your head.

Poe's Raven muttering Nevermore was incorrect even if it was perched on a bust of Pallas the goddess of wisdom.  Chaos does not persist unless one chooses to perseverate. Chaos evanesces if, when you are able, you open the door and allow the foul air to escape.  Consciousness without chaos is something that one can retrieve.  "Quaff oh quaff that sweet nepenthe and forget the lost Lenore."
There may be no true nepenthe, but there is time and time can be considered such.

The wonder of sport and its value as metaphor is that there is always another game, another opportunity for a clean slate with which to demonstrate your capabilities and value.  The New York Rangers down 2-0 to the Bruins have a shot tonight to win and make the series competitive.  The Memphis Grizzlies pummeled by San Antonio on Sunday can come out tonight and play like champions.

And we can, however heavy our hearts, no matter how heartbroken or bereft, have a shot at another day.  We the living can escape chaos.  Not by artifically revising our world with booze or illusions, but by opening the doors to allow sadness to leave the premises and recognizing that it may take time for it to go.