When we’re children, we think our parents know all the rules. As we become older, we see the truth: maybe they don’t really have it all together. Then, when we ourselves reach adulthood, we are introduced to an order of the world — laws and names and guidelines that can both stifle and instruct, that can both overwhelm and motivate. I see this chaos everywhere. I see it in my days as a pedestrian (and sometimes driver) on the Ann Arbor streets; I see it restrained by Apple’s purple “Do Not Disturb” warning floating over my text bar (and released again in pushing “Notify Anyway”); most of all, though, I see it in art.
In every piece of media that matters, chaos is king. Upending the status quo can be violent, destructive and stressful, but chaos can also be a cleansing force, a renewal — a mandate for us to rethink, rebuild and establish yet another new order. There’s an ebb and flow. Even in the absence of chaos, the order that remains is left rigid and stale, save for the looming threat of the walls crashing in.
In Lulu Miller’s memoir, “Why Fish Don’t Exist,” she writes:
“I have come to believe that it is our life’s work to tear down this order, to keep tugging at it, trying to unravel it … That it is our life’s work to mistrust our measures … To remember that behind every rule there is a Ruler. To remember that a category is at best a proxy; at worst, a shackle.”
I hope you find that these five writers have taken a step towards that goal.
Senior Arts Writer Cora Rolfes can be reached at corolfes@umich.edu.
