Hormesis, Depression, etc

If abstracting hormesis to a macroscopic scale seems a bit of a crackpot theory still, let's look at well-known and proven domestic aids for depression such as exercise, hot peppers, coffee, education and spirituality for some of us along with more controversial aids such as electroconvulsive therapy. I think you can see the obvious commonality of them now which is their stimulus effect. They wake you up, essentially, they feed a stagnant system with a form of chaos or higher entropy. Too much and of course the dam becomes unstable, the castle can crumble but too little means the system isn't tested on a consistent basis therefore weaknesses aren't patched. But feeding a system with a little bit of chaos that puts it into a slight alert status seems to have positive benefits, generally. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this is why I can't agree with religious systems which stress good/evil dichotomies as I consider these mutually complementary to some degree and also why I have a hard time agreeing with people who think in less nuanced terms in these respects. As to what the golden ratio of stability and chaos is, I'm not sure but for some reason I'm stuck on ten percent which isn't very justified other than hearkening back to the tenth man notion. Maybe fifteen percent as it equates to at least one day of the week that humans have established that we can allow ourselves to break from order and run amok, if we like, or at least let our minds break free from weekday stagnation. Generally I'd agree that a successful system needs more stability than chaos but make no mistake, some amount of chaos is a formula for success. Thinking back to a few documentaries I've watched lately on colonial America and Victorian England, every successful country spurred out of at least momentary chaos. On the topic of depression again, of course this needs mediated to some extent because as we've also seen, people in very chaotic environments can just as easily become depressed as those in very stagnant environments.

"It's an odd thing, Mr. Ireton. Every man who wages war believes God is on his side. I'll warrant God should often wonder who is on his." - Cromwell (1970). I first heard of this quote in Call of Duty 1, I believe, and it'd occasionally occur to me over the years and I'd find myself asking if indeed everyone truly thinks that what they do, they feel they're doing because it's what they should do by some prime directive, anthropomorphic or not, as an overall good. If we take the notion of hormesis into account, even the ones who throw some chaos in the system you could say objectively do some good and I've long viewed it that way if we conclude the universe is logical then there are logical reasons people do what they do, whether we may like them or not. I think a lot of what we intuitively feel has some degree of logical validity to it and I've often wondered the reasoning behind me having a bit of disgust when in more formal and sacred places where stability and tradition are over-valued and not dared to be questioned. Feeling disgusted isn't an uncommon feeling for me as it's almost my natural state and incidentally I've read that people who are disgusted easily tend to be more conservative. I know that rings true for myself as I've naturally been conservative most of my life but through time and experience become more liberal, not just politically. But I know I'm not the only one who feels this way in some settings and I believe I've keyed in to the logical basis of it. It seems some of us feel that stagnation can easily grow into decadence and degeneracy just as well as chaos but at our common level it usually shows itself in the political manners of the times rather than some higher doctrine that praises change on the whole as contrarily, even those who might praise change tend not to want it when the world changes in their favor. They become the new champions who, with increasing stagnation and comfort, afraid to budge, become an ever-increasing target with ever-increasing exploitative positions. All in all, I'd just like to make the point that change often invigorates life and it's not necessarily an antagonist. I know from experience since I can easily become much too comfortable with things and afraid of change, as many autistically-minded types are, and unless you know me, you probably don't know just how bad I am about that and how long it took to over-ride some of my flawed nature. But if I've beat around the bush too much previously, I think a little bit of chaos is a good thing.

And because I can't write an entry without breaking the fourth wall or going meta, if it seems like my writing is all over the place here, so is my mind. I'm not too pleased with this entry but this is my mind, mostly unfiltered, take it or leave it.