Comments on: Would that be calmotic or chaolm?

Question: Would that be calmotic or chaolm?

lesli212 — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 19:36:47 -0800

What are some things that are both chaotic and calm simultaneously?

The classic example is, of course, the calm at the eye of a storm. I'm looking for something a bit less clichéd. Or, if it is a cliché, it should at least be an unexpected comparison. Non-English language clichés might work.

I'm trying to describe a process in metaphorical terms, and I need some phrase that will capture the feeling of being totally, obsessively, out of control while simultaneously experiencing a meditative sense of peacefulness and calm despite -- or even because of -- the chaos.

Oh, but no drug references please.

By: muddgirl

muddgirl — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 19:42:21 -0800

White Noise or visual static.

By: Margalo Epps

Margalo Epps — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 19:43:44 -0800

Parenting.

By: windykites

windykites — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 19:44:10 -0800

I think being the passenger in a moving vehicle is like this for me, especially on a multi-lane highway; all of the cars whizzing at 120kph, wheels turning, engines... um... engining.... thousands of different moving parts, all operating at once, seperate and independant yet harmonious, and me sitting perfectly still and silent in the midst of it.

By: fings

fings — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 19:45:02 -0800

White noise and (analog) TV static. Both are random chaos, but people use white noise generators to block out non-chaotic sounds for peaseful sleep, and staring at TV static can be hypnotic.

By: Perplexity

Perplexity — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 19:47:31 -0800

Fast-flowing rivers.

By: Confess, Fletch

Confess, Fletch — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 19:48:25 -0800

Flight Deck

By: insomniax

insomniax — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 19:50:04 -0800

That beautiful calm surface of a river - hiding all the turbulence from the rocks underneath - with a waterfall downstream. Upper ebor falls

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebor_Falls

By: ian1977

ian1977 — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 19:50:53 -0800

Flocks of birds

By: headnsouth

headnsouth — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 19:51:38 -0800

For my son, who has a lot of anxiety, the frenetic energy/cacophony of seriously hardcore metal music takes him to his zen place.

By: war wrath of wraith

war wrath of wraith — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 19:53:46 -0800

A Jackson Pollock.

By: likeso

likeso — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 19:55:51 -0800

The Lightning Field.

By: charmcityblues

charmcityblues — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 19:58:40 -0800

Salmon fighting their way up a stream. Mr. Blues and I were out fishing today, and I was struck by the quiet and the calm-- and the chaos just beneath the surface.

By: trialex

trialex — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:02:23 -0800

What about waves? You can be in the right spot, floating on your back and it's a gentle rocking action, but move even just slightly closer to the shore and you can be thrashed around by a dumping wave.

By: jgirl

jgirl — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:09:31 -0800

Swimming waterfowl: gliding on the surface of the water, while paddling away underneath it.

By: hermitosis

hermitosis — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:10:20 -0800

Chi Sao, the form of wrestling performed in Wing Chun kung fu, feels like that. It's all concentration and most of your body is at rest -- meanwhile your hands and arms are instinctively swiveling and chopping, searching for any tiny hole in your opponent's defense. Here's a video.

By: jquinby

jquinby — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:11:03 -0800

Wu wei

By: Chocolate Pickle

Chocolate Pickle — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:16:24 -0800

A waterfall. (I am very calmed by watching waterfalls.)

By: Chocolate Pickle

Chocolate Pickle — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:16:57 -0800

A candle flame.

Smoke rising from a stick of incense.

By: Prof Iterole

Prof Iterole — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:20:47 -0800

.......but no drug references please.

Sex (ymmv)

By: fshgrl

fshgrl — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:26:09 -0800

Fire is like this for me.

By: windykites

windykites — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:26:41 -0800

Ooh.... drum solos! Have you seen the zen look in a drummer's eye when they're really rockin'? Similarly, a conductor of a symphony, and a person sitting still playing an action video game.

By: ottereroticist

ottereroticist — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:45:17 -0800

Calmotic and chaolm! Love both those words.

How about the movement of the Earth through space? We seem to be standing immobile, but we're actually hurtling through space at inconceivable speeds in an immensely complex movement.

By: Ghostride The Whip

Ghostride The Whip — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:52:30 -0800

Maybe it's because the game just wrapped up, but (American) football? To the untrained observer, it looks like 22 overpaid men running and flailing around randomly, but if you know what's going on, it's 22 men operating precisely planned plays and running routes they've practiced and practiced until they know them by memory, then adjusting on the fly to catch new situations, all in a few seconds at incredible speeds. Despite the chaos seemingly swirling around them (and 300 pound men trying to hurt them), all of them know where to go and what to do and it's the rare breakdown that's extremely noticeable.

By: Gorgik

Gorgik — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:57:03 -0800

This is running, for me. There's a huge amount of activity in systems throughout my body, but when I'm dialed in to proper form and rhythm, it feels as if I'm gliding effortlessly through space.

By: YukonQuirm

YukonQuirm — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 21:05:20 -0800

Working in an emergency room
Being the risk manager of a hospital
Waves off the Oregon Coast
Tokyo during peek hour - or the commuter transfer from the train into any main city station from the burbs at 7am - I remember Union Station Toronto - 7:18 off the GO station, through Union, to the TTC - chaotic but calm and carefully orchestrated by thousands every minute of peek hour
Shinjuku Station any time of the day
Walking down the aisle when you are about to get married - or maybe that was just me and the chaos was in my head :-)

By: kettleoffish

kettleoffish — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 21:09:42 -0800

Tetris

By: teremala

teremala — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 21:30:37 -0800

Slow-motion cuts in combat/action scenes can feel that way. Inception and The Avengers come to mind as having nice examples.

By: fuse theorem

fuse theorem — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 21:32:23 -0800

Freeform jazz

By: JohnnyGunn

JohnnyGunn — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 21:41:34 -0800

When I was a floor trader on the Chicago Board of Trade in the 80's and 90's, the yelling and screaming and seemingly random pointing and gesturing made it look like chaos, but if you knew what it all meant, it was oddly relaxing. My friends used to marvel at the pressure, but I always thought it was fun.

By: CheshireCat

CheshireCat — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 22:06:15 -0800

First person shooter games have that for me. What looks like a flurry of random violence on screen feels like a waltz of perfect concentration. Left 4 Dead is sort of the perfect example, since you have this overwhelming horde of zombies running at you, seemingly at random, but if you're in tune with your teammates you can get these calm zen moments where everyone is working together simultaneously to keep the tide at bay in flawless unison. You can only see what is in front of you, but you're calm anyway because you know that what you can't see is being taken care of in another direction. You are exactly as safe as your teammates are skilled, and you just have to trust them. Often it devolves into real chaos, but there are still those moments that click and everything falls into place.

Watching an experienced player go through old Doom maps is even more like a dance. There are projectiles flying everywhere and sometimes staggeringly huge amounts of enemies on the screen, but they can weave in and out of it all to the point that they seem almost untouchable amidst the chaos.

By: lrrosa

lrrosa — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 22:07:06 -0800

Skydiving

By: rjs

rjs — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 22:33:40 -0800

An anthill. There's frantic activity, but at the same time it's highly ordered.

The Internet. There's frantic activity from countless bits and pieces and packets of information whizzing about, and still on a macro level it just does the job of delivering this page to your screen.

By: Fister Roboto

Fister Roboto — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 22:33:44 -0800

Ocean waves.

By: ceribus peribus

ceribus peribus — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 23:18:25 -0800

Air traffic controllers, or emergency services dispatcher. Similar to the already mentioned hospital ER or time critical surgery.

The issue/situation being tackled and dealt with is large, chaotic, even fractal, but the best approach is to methodically address each step in calm, measured tones -- eg. "Flight 3529, descend and maintain five thousand", "Dispatch, notify area hospitals we've got people coming in", "Scalpel please, nurse" -- each step is calm and controlled in order to not make the situation worse.

By: flabdablet

flabdablet — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 23:27:37 -0800

Have you seen the zen look in a drummer's eye when they're really rockin'?

Oh, yes. This.

By: Eumachia L F

Eumachia L F — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 03:40:41 -0800

In the same vein as headnsouth, I would suggest early period Metallica.

More specifically, I'd say being in a mosh pit - allowing yourself to flail, completely surrendered and out of control, as one of many individual flailing agents in a collective superorganism that writhes and heaves to music in way that looks chaotic but is actually tightly knitted and follows a generally accepted code of etiquette.

By: qldaddy

qldaddy — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 03:53:05 -0800

As an observer, both waterfalls and fires work for me.
As a participant, juggling and working as a line cook on a busy night.

By: muhonnin

muhonnin — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 04:46:28 -0800

My grandparents used to have a lava lamp which I could stare at for ages when I visited, because of just this combination of chaos and calm.

By: Zonker

Zonker — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 05:22:23 -0800

A Bach fugue.

By: tommasz

tommasz — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 06:39:50 -0800

A stagnant pool. Seemingly still but full of life, both visible and invisible.

By: jammy

jammy — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 07:04:52 -0800

whirlpools

flames

ripples

clouds

falling leaves

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 07:12:14 -0800

A slightly less cliched image than the eye of the storm is the duck swimming on a lake. Calm and placid above the water, but paddling like mad under the surface.

By: rocket88

rocket88 — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:14:10 -0800

Fish in a fish tank move chaotically, although slowly, in a calming manner.
Also, this scarf.

By: en forme de poire

en forme de poire — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:57:42 -0800

To get totally nerdy, at the single-cell level a lot of things are chaotic and noisy, even in cells that are quiescent (i.e., not dividing). For one, cells are crowded with proteins which are constantly bumping into each other and modifying each other* in addition to doing other types of chemistry. Plus, genes are being transcribed all of the time in order to eventually make the proteins the cell needs, but even though this process is tightly controlled, there's also a strong stochastic ("random") element. And yet a quiescent cell often appears perfectly stable and stationary under the microscope.

* from this comment on a recent paper: The structure of the kinase and phosphatase interaction network revealed by Breitkreutz et al. does not have the command and control organization suggestive of textbook-depicted linear cascades. Indeed, the authors observed about ∼30% more interactions among kinases than would be expected by chance, suggesting extensive cross-talk between signaling pathways.

By: lesli212

lesli212 — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 10:05:08 -0800

Wow, y'all are amazing! Keep them coming.

By: Corvid

Corvid — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 13:09:12 -0800

continuing en forme de poire's thought [12:57]: just being alive, while "doing nothing." Sometimes I sit still and close my eyes and think about all the crazy, coordinated actions that are going on in my body and brain, inherent in the activities of being and staying alive -- all the electrical and chemical processes, communications and adjustments, most of which I know nothing about. Then I have to get up and do something distracting to calm down, just to take my mind off all the gob-smacking excitement of Doing Nothing.

By: hap_hazard

hap_hazard — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 17:12:28 -0800

We live with 2 dogs. they're about 65 and 85 lbs, and they fight for hours every day- playfighting, but super intense. They'll be growling, snarling, biting each other, running and jumping, and I can whisper 'boys' and they'll both stop immediately and placidly stare into the distance (that's how I know it's calm for them, too). I've joked about it being like watching a washer at the laundromat- gold and black fur in a constantly rotating whirl- but it really is that relaxing for me, watching them.

By: galvanized unicorn

galvanized unicorn — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 16:22:07 -0800

roller coasters

dancing

techno/electronic music