Perfection and Chaos

I wish to talk about this today, since I keep on hearing nowadays repeatedly from people and also in my architectural field. Firstly, these thoughts are personal and it is also intended for the Reader to ‘consider and ponder’ on them – that’s all. Therefore, the write up is written with the intention of self exploration as well as informal discussion.

The above two terms can be stated from the point of view of abstraction and this can be subsequently tied to its application on a day to day basis – this forms the “top-down” approach. The other approach stems from day to day incidences and trying to condense, refine and form an abstract working of the principle – this may be referred as “bottom – up” approach. I may use the combination of both.

Principally, I have come to understand that these two terms are inter related. And each of the terms reflects a kind of a way of thinking and perceiving reality.

Perfection:

Perfection comes in the manner of thought, sequence, process, output, monitoring and improvising. Most of the effort and the talk and the systems (of digitization) are geared towards the tasks of perfection of output – and therefore the timely inputs, data collections, timely analysis, monitoring and so on. Generally, it points towards optimization of our personal time and our life as well. It demands proper structuring of thoughts and its application. This can be quite irritating to some of us, and I am sure especially for those people who prefer artistic endeavour –since “inspiration” can’t be commanded at will – but is to be understood as a magical revelation of knowledge. Thus, perfection in the predicted output and creativity in the process may seem to go at loggerheads. A perfectionist may consider human emotions, feelings, behaviour as utterly messy and unpredictable – but I think that’s the nature of life – one can’t make it perfectly ordered and neither should one believe that it can be done or should be done. For people who demand perfection, most of the things in India may look extremely chaotic. And what do we mean by ‘chaos’ – something that you (as an individual) cannot control or comprehend or make any sense of it. So does it really make the situation ‘chaotic’ in absolute terms? If the answer to this is ‘no’, then are we understanding the perspective of chaos in the correct way?

Chaos:

Generally, things seem to happen at random, simultaneous, weird, rapidness, confusing and conflicting. However, any phenomenon does have an order – whether you acknowledge it or not. Some orders are explicit and others are implicit. Implicit orders may appear chaotic at the surface, but fulfil their own ecosystems if understood deeply enough. Thus, the requirement for us is – to what extent and to what depth have we understood the situation? Are we seeing the ‘whole’ picture or only the ‘part’ of the picture – because depending on the scale of our focus, the answer will change drastically. Orderly in parts may appear chaotic as a whole and chaos in parts may be perfectly ordered on the whole! This relativity in perception may lead to better understanding of the traffic scenarios, population impacts and so on in India. For most people (including me) – Mumbai is just utterly chaotic and close to a nightmare in fact. However, we haven’t thought long enough, deep enough to understand how does it still continue to function on its own without collapsing anywhere?!! Thus, it does exhibit an order! Life in India has to be lived in this way. It can’t be structured and compartmentalized in ways that Developed Nations have been successful in doing their respective environments.

Philosophically, Developed Nations’ environments portray a projection of a rational mind – the craze (if I may say so) of being ordered. And that has reflected in the ways people live out their lives, their perceptions and the built environment as well. It has also led to a kind of a belief from people living out there that everything can be ordered and planned and predicted in advance. This belief, I feel, is to be viewed with caution. As human beings, we are going to face emotional, personally challenging situations, for which any kind of a pre determined order doesn’t have an answer. What do you do in such cases? What comes to the forefront are emotions, feelings and gut instincts. And one must learn to trust these things. Also, can one set order to feelings, moods, memories, diseases, trauma, death, and so on? To expect order for these things is ridiculous. And such things are everywhere around us. Learn to acknowledge them – they are our very own nature.

In that perspective, India makes one live in an intuitive way – there’s no other better way to experience the quality of life in India, because a rational mind would find India repulsive and messy. Learning to deal with chaos is very important – it makes one understand the uncertainties, frailties and restraints of human decisions. It makes one aware that things can go wrong and everything has to be accepted in good spirit. It also makes one extremely humble to the point, that the concept of ‘individual contribution’ would be completely dissolved and an awareness of collective wisdom or decision making processes comes to the forefront.

In one of my past experiences while working in an architectural firm – this was the requirement of working...nobody said that explicitly, but one had to adapt to the strange, volatile way of working on architectural projects. I left the job, since I found it too messy to handle and it just challenged everything I used to do previously – it made me feel very much uncomfortable. However, I marvel at the Directors of the firm who handled those scenarios. For government jobs (which were awarded to this firm where I used to work), there was no hierarchy of decision making – no budgeting, no sanctioning, no clarity regarding what’s to be done and so on. Constant changes from client, contractors and other consultants was the rule of the game and somehow you had to finish the project in some time and in some granted budget. Thus, everything looked merely “namesake” – systems, drawings, decisions, legalities, evaluation – they were just notional. The agreement between the client and the architect (followed by the conditions of contract between the contractor and the client) sets the professional relationship between these three parties and who decides what and when and how. If this itself is thrown out of the window, then what you have is a perfect ‘chaos’! Drawings were demanded at random and at will, the costs by the contractor were inflated at will, cheaters have to therefore be caught or let off the hook with a stern warning, there was fighting on each and every small item (despite a prior decision taken beforehand) and then there were whims and fancies of the government officials who had no clue as to what the project demanded. One was expected to work with extremely super dumb people who had got the right to kick your ass because of their ‘privileged positions’ through reservations and so on. You were rubbed in the wrong way repeatedly and for the wrong reasons. One just started a project at some point and one just hoped that it would end some day! Where was our individual will in this case? And where was the purpose? What happened about quality control and perfection? How should one digest this situation? It demanded a lot of patience to successfully take all the people and give a satisfactory output. This was unnerving for me. I left the firm and so did many of my other colleagues. However, I do respect the strength and the perseverance that the Directors of the firm exhibited. I understood that one had to tackle the situation from a very fundamental humanly instinctive angle and get things done in an acceptable way. In such scenarios, the ‘ visual form’ of architecture was not important – what assumed importance was to effectively handle a project and collaborate with people under stressful scenarios. And there are millions of situations such as these in rural projects, in extremely scarce resource laden environments and other government jobs. If an architect wants to handle such scenarios and make a good contributory mark for the society, then he/she would have to literally leave his/her professionally defined position and be involved in many things that contribute in making of the project – and on the way you may have nightmares, stressful scenarios, and thoroughly insulted at no fault of yours. Thus, any situation is a situation – are we ready for it is the question we need to ask ourselves. Is our purpose and compassion bigger than such challenges?

Above was an example in professional life. Personal life can also generate lot of challenges and friction. That has to be digested, accepted and empathized. It is a great learning experience in retrospection, no matter how much pain it causes. Pain is inevitable – it is the way one befriends it that makes all the difference.