Welcome to April’s Synchronized Chaos issue! This time we have the privilege of featuring artists from a wider variety of genres, including independent filmmakers, several musicians, and a business consultant. Each work within this month’s assortment was highly unique and distinctive, with a clear sense of theme and purpose. Our contributors know they have something to say, and have clear reasons for choosing their particular styles and media.
Various aspects of adaptation and change served as a common thread through this month’s work. This theme currently features in popular and academic culture outside of Synchronized Chaos, through works such as Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point and Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat. How can we identify and keep up with the changes around us? How can we survive and effectively adapt and take advantage of the opportunities presented by changing times while holding on to our values? Can we choose our responses to, or choose to direct and modify, the changes happening in the world around us? How have people historically dealt with periods of rapid societal change?
Our April contributors explore and address these kinds of questions through their art and writing, as well as concerns of their own. Authors Adam Metz, Ina Wong and Ashlee Holland provide a framework through their characters or their business models for choosing to change oneself first to better adapt to personal and encourage broader societal change. To encourage ethical behavior (accommodations for deafness, loyal, honest friendship) or to move one’s company towards use of the latest technology, one must examine one’s own behavior and attitudes honestly before seeking to critique others. Not that any of those authors shies away from encouraging activism…but world-changing starts with oneself and one’s own approach to speaking out for what one believes.
Cultivating an attitude of curiosity and wonder also helps many people face change…the band Corpus Callosum explores old, odd technologies and bits of history to create a sense of horror/fascination and wonder at how things have changed historically. Their music brings us back to the days when people stared in wonder at Bell’s telephone or Edison’s phonograph. Missy Feigum’s paintings depict mutant animals with pastel colors, delicate little Siamese twin unicorns and pigs with extra legs…at once showing off the effects of possible environmental damage to chromosomes and touching on the childlike sense of wonder at something out of the ordinary, different from the children’s book romanticized views of animals. We can be afraid but curious and strangely fascinated at the same time.
Acceptance and taking full advantage of change can also start with acknowledging the reality of one’s fears and emotions. Shanna Gilfix’ music looks at love, loss, and questioning one’s place in life and encourages people to recognize their own emotions in the lyrics and to know through hearing the song that they are okay and not alone. Other songs inspire people to question their place in life, to sit with themselves and wait for answers from the truest part of themselves which may not come immediately. Michael’s Resignation, an upcoming independent British film about the psychological consequences of war and the global financial crisis, explores how change causes many ordinary, decent people to feel irrelevant and experience extreme frustration. The new story from M.R.C. of Chaos Creations looks into loss and grief and how those change-associated emotions hold people back as metaphorical ‘ghosts’ unable to move forward into a new reality as represented by Heaven/remarriage/new life directions. Both pieces look into how change affects different people in different ways…quick and easy adaptation is not a privilege everyone can enjoy, and how can we help those for whom change may be more difficult? Also, in both pieces acknowledging honest feelings of fear or rage concerning impending change (as an individual in terms of saying a ritual goodbye and moving forward, or as a society in terms of providing retraining/assistance to jobseekers or treating ordinary people with dignity) comes forward as the first step towards progress. We see what happens for people who cannot adapt (Michael’s violence, the ghosts stuck forever in the desert deprived of Heaven) and start a dialogue concerning how to best facilitate adaptation for those who will be disadvantaged.
Susy Flory and Ashlee Holland’s writing, and Ricci De Valdez and Shanna Gilfix’ music (as shown by their artist’s journeys, detailed in brief through our interviews) all celebrate resourcefulness when it comes to adapting to change. Locally based musicians must deal with performing to a wide variety of crowds, financing their ventures in unique ways, and often fusing a variety of styles. Susy Flory also presents adaptation by choice…coming across icons from the lives of famous women she admires, and taking small steps towards emulating them. Her work reflects a high degree of creativity in terms of figuring out how best to incorporate each historical woman’s life choices into her own…how can a suburban homemaker take on qualities of Queen Elizabeth or Mary Magdalene? Ashlee Holland’s journey through deafness involves many adaptations by necessity…but she still approaches these with creativity and honest self-acceptance, which is a choice in itself.
Synchronized Chaos Magazine certainly has adapted over the years, both by choice and by necessity. We celebrate and honor these artists who have highlighted the journey of adaptation and the historical imperative of change and responded by encouraging personal and societal compassion, creativity, and resourcefulness.