Wild Boars and Seals – Chaos and Complexity

S P E C
T R U M S P E C T R U M S P E C T R U M

Wazza’s
Trans-Tasman tales (cont.)

Looking at the human
interactions we see two groups with strong advantageous qualities,
the rescuer Seals and the Wild Boars rescuees, who are both inherently
‘teams’ with innate capabilities for acting in self-organising
ways that benefit the intents and purposes of their group. For the
Wild Boars, their practices and performances as a football team and
the presence of their coach afforded them a great advantage in dealing
with the adversities they faced. For the Seals – both the specialist
cave divers and the ‘official’ Thai Navy divers –
their deeply embodied expertise formed through operating (usually
as buddies) in often opaque and torturously confining environments
with delicately balanced life support systems, afforded a similar
advantage. And, in the case of one of the leading cave divers, his
anaesthesiology profession offered a further highly desirable advantage
– unparalleled knowledge of the human respiratory system and
support technologies.
As to how these interactions transpired, no doubt much will be written
and documentaries produced in time, but in my mind much can be attributed
to chaos and complexity at work. This is not to detract from aspects
of rationality that arguably played their part in decision making,
but rather to emphasise ways of being and doing that are often overlooked
in the rush to ‘find’ ‘answers’ for ‘problems’.
What is evident to me is that many of the Seal’s actions, amongst
themselves and with the Wild Boars, were affectively nonlinear. That
is, their actions interactively engaged them in unpredictable conditions,
conduct and consequences that were experienced and responded to by
drawing on awareness, experience, intuition and intelligence. The
nonlinear interactive process thereby becomes a continuous experiencing-knowing-doing
cycle that is as much a mindful creative act as it is a rational one.
Two examples of this that spring to mind are: navigating through a
claustrophobic cave enclosure under muddy water in pitch darkness,
and; evaluating the capacity of a child to undergo an unknown extreme
physical and mental challenge. The former calls for tactile awareness
and spatial envisioning and the latter expects nuanced interpersonal
emotional engagement.
What inspired my piece this month most of all was the wonderful, insightful
illustration above by artist Sisidea that the Thai Navy Seals published
on their Facebook page. The image portrays the nice symmetry I initially
mentioned by bringing all of the elements into focus while giving
us a sense of how they interactively engage with chaos and complexity
for order to emerge. It also does this in a style that resonates really
well with the youthfulness and playfulness of the kids concerned.
cartoon

There is something very satisfying in not only sharing in the experience
of a heartening outcome to a challenging situation but to also being
able to offer some insight into the circumstances prevailed.