CHAOS rules OK - are you in control?

Even those that think they are completely in control of their lives are actually not. What is being in 'control' and where do we draw the line between fate, circumstance, chance, luck and coincidence? I don't know... but if I take myself through a normal day then I come to realise that in fact I am in control of nothing. While I make choices that create my everyday life experience, I am constrained and pushed by external forces greater than myself - the forces of mankind that as a whole create a much greater effect than my own choices alone. Out of the chaos that sorrounds us, we all live an existence constrained by law, environment and our conscious thoughts through rights and wrongs and morals.

So I wake up in the morning - why do I wake up at 7am? Who said 7am is the right time to rise? Why not 3am or 3pm? Man has decided that a working day begins in the am and ends in the pm and there is certainly a mathematical and historical reasoning behind this - but in 2009 do any of us know what that reasoning was?

I rise, put on the TV and begin taking in the days news. The recession bites harder, the Labour party causes more havoc, The Sun decides to change political allegiance, property prices fall yet again, a Tsunami hits Sumatra etc. The days' negativity has begun.

I go to work to please my boss. I board a train. From the chaos, a small time table allows me to plan my day, creating boundaries and order out of potential disorder. How else would I know the train arrives at 8.11am? On the train, I am quiet and calm, executing my 'business' posture like everyone else. Conformity is annoying is it not?

During work, timings are obeyed - lunch times, meeting times and close of business time. All of these 'times' and gateways structured to create my working day. Returning to the train platform, consulting my little timetable. Being held up on platform 4 because train x is late... I am constrained by the fault of others and the knock-on effect is not my fault. I get home late and get in my car - drive through endless traffic. I stop at man-made traffic lights, negotiate through roads constrained by traffic laws and roads that almost tell me which way to travel - after all I cannot drive onto the path can I? That would be dangerous and against the law? Who knows what would get in the way, a lamp post? Designed to provide light and visibility on this clear evening. Or maybe a person - forced to walk on the sidewalk because that is the right thing to do. Or maybe a building. Man made.

In fact everything around us is man made. Look around. What is natural? Everything you see around you is ergonomically designed, fit for purpose and functional. Even my patch of grass in my urban jungle sprawl has been placed with intention - no rhizomes here. No chaos - just functional.

I now live in an urban jungle and in all of the functional, fit for purpose elements that sorround me lies a person making sense of the chaos... My organised religion gives me reasoning to make sense of the chaos but then I fear the priest is taking advantage of me. After all, the priest was late getting to his sermon today, a traffic jam and strong winds makes for a delayed prayer. Why would the priests' blessing have any bearing on me? He is a human being, breathes the same, cries the same tears, shits like everyone else. Divine wisdom or inspired bullshit? Man-made religion - adjusted and negotiated to suit those who practice it? An opiate to make sense of the chaos?

So if I live with total freedom then why is every element of my life almost governed by the elements both natural and man-made?