Archive of Articles
Controlled Spontaneity
November 20, 2008
The youthful philosopher Nietzsche, in his inspired work, "Birth of the Tragedy," sought a way of being in which the essence of nature could be expressed symbolically. He sought a new world of symbols where the entire symbolism of the body is called into play, not the mere symbolism of the lips, the face, and speech but the whole pantomime of dancing, forcing every member into rhythmic movement.
Nietzsche was struggling to reconcile one of the classic contradictions in the human condition: the freedom to play and the desire for order (he used the terms of Dionysian versus Apollonian). He concluded that chaos and order are not necessarily contradictory -- instead, they compliment one another. What he overlooked was ritual, which is the crucible in which they are mixed.
Ritual provides a framework for controlled spontaneity, where both order and chaos may come together. This is play.
Play comes to us as naturally as the odd movements of little babies. Babies' movements are chaotic, in a sense, but they are ordered by the controlling framework of their unfolding, genetic makeup. There is a lesson in this.
Little babies cry and scream and talk to themselves, not just because they need attention, but because they are reacting to the growth of their bodies -- in this case their vocal cords. As they learn to crawl and then to walk, their "play" is mainly just a response to their body's growth -- stretching, so to speak. When they really do become mobile, and they start getting into trouble (when mom and dad start saying "no") they are stretching both their bodies and their minds -- testing not just the physical order of things, but the symbolic as well.
What all this child's play amounts to is a testing of boundaries. The early boundaries are more physical, learning what their bodies can and can't do. But even when babies start creating sounds of their own, and even mimicking the sounds their parents make, they are testing and finding out about social boundaries, too. Even nonsense is meaningful.
Similarly, the teenager who keeps breaking rules, can't really help it. The mind is now growing, too, and it takes awhile to learn what society will and will not accept. Play is a testing of the waters, or an exploration of the unknown, the in-between, and all those parts of life that we don't fully understand. This is how we grow. Sadly, as adults, we stop playing, and stretching, and testing boundaries.
Controlled spontaneity is where knowledge meets the unknown. This nexus is at the heart of ritualing, in the qualiadelic experience.
This is why we need to understand the simple craft of ritual. We have some more growing to do, and boundary testing. Let us learn to practice controlled spontaneity.
Be Qualiadelic. Be Conscious. Change the Routine.
Return to the archive of articles.