I Like My Patterns Paisley

In books, on websites, in living rooms and doctor offices they warn you to be aware of  patterns you create with your baby. Sure, I heeded them, I did my best, but in my weaker moments (those sleep-deprived zombie states) I may have pulled some motherly no-nos.

For those night time wakes, putting Henry on my breast just worked. He’d go right back to sleep, and I would happily follow suit. It seemed fine. For a while.

Somehow, at some point, things got out of hand. I’ve always been bad at letting Henry cry,and he’s never learned to–as they say–self soothe.

Here’s the pattern: Henry wakes up at midnight (then at one then at two then at three…) He is crying. I stagger in, try to soothe him with shh-ing and hand pats. I try to soothe him with rocking and singing. I give up, feed him and five minutes later, he’s asleep.

It’s psychology 101. Henry is dependent on my breast to fall asleep and I have nobody to blame but myself. I initiated the pattern and now he’s come to unconsciously (and consciously) expect it. Not just expect it, but need it.

Watching the movie "I Heart Huckabees" is an entertaining alternative to reading this post.

Last night we started the difficult process of rerouting these psychological (and probably physiological) pathways.

Wake up———-> Suckle————> Fall Asleep

Wake up ———->Suck Fingers, Pacifier————>Fall Asleep

Pattern recognition is an ability available to all animals. Two ears, a long tail, and sharp teeth create a visual pattern in nature that precipitates in some fellow critters the desire to run. Similarly, the pattern of warm weather, longer days and lush vegetation create in others the need to collect food and to ballast reliable shelter.

The first stop of this train-of-thought is the obvious implications for adult humans–because–to be honest–I’ve found too many similarities between myself, my baby boy, and the family pet.

People of all ages like patterns and patterns create needs–both conscious and unconscious. This works on a small behavorial level like with morning routines, holiday rituals, and the steps we require to “unwind” after a day’s work. Patterns exist in my day-to-day relationships and the roles we fall into because the path’s are so well grooved.

Just this afternoon my husband and I discussed the steps we would need to take to keep a tidier house. Putting away objects after use, vacuuming regularly, putting  laundry in its rightful drawers–the patterns we will attempt to adopt promise to contain these and more.

Yes, patterns are everywhere. From the very small to the very large. In the history of our own lives, the irrevocable first loss (of love, rejection) is often recreated, as it is replayed again and again, by ourselves, despite ourselves. In the history of our species, the truism: history repeats itself, holds true from generation to generation, from eon to eon.

"In a work of art, chaos must shimmer through the veil of order." -Novalis

Less I declare ourselves victims to the universe’s insistence on pattern, I hasten to attest that the acknowledgement of pattern proves empowering. We create them ourselves, through our perception of and submission to them; and though difficult, it is always possible to create patterns anew.

In the human animal, it is my opinion that the need for pattern is a variation on the need for order. Without order it would be nearly impossible to function–both inside our contemporary society and outside of it in the “wild”.

Pattern (order) exists both inside and outside our psyches. My little son recognizes pattern and learns it so quickly. Order composes our biological systems, our bodies, our mathematical, musical, and visual realities.

Reason, a result of pattern and order, underlies the basis of all serious academic thought–all cultural advancements.

By “chaos” the Platonists meant the world in its formless state; but by “world” they meant chaos endowed with form.

With that, we introduce the other side of the coin: Chaos. The yin to the Yang. I am not unaware of the old existential argument–of the presence of chaos, of disorder and absurdity. Clearly, life can be cruel, random, seemingly meaningless.

Generally speaking, folks don’t appreciate this partner of order: chaos. The Hebrew word used for evil translates as: calamity, disaster, chaos. When Hippasus revealed irrational numbers to the Pythagoreans, he was tossed overboard and drowned for it. The world was not ready to accept the irrational.

But, as the psychologist R.D. Laing wrote, “Madness need not be all break down. It may also be break through. It is potentially liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.”

"The heart has reasons that reason will never know." --Blaise Pascal

We need chaos just as much as we need order. If life were nothing but order, but strict pattern, free-will would be impossible, as would the notion of the individual period. We would be nothing more than the product of particles, waves and their chemical reactions. Singers would croon about the elevated activity in their dopaminergic pathways. Decisions would become futile. Spontaneity, miracles, jazz–none of these would prove possible. Even love would prove challenged–for aren’t we endeared most by our loved one’s imperfections? “It is the imperfections that identity them. It is the imperfections that ask for our love.” (Joseph Campbell. I love Joseph Campbell)

“Thus the universe is the scene of the interplay of two contrary tendencies: disordering and ordering,” writes Lancelot Law Whyte (Financer and industrial engineer); And I suppose we need both. In the meantime, however, my little baby has enough of the crazy, being so fresh to this world, and I suppose it’s my job as his mum to help create the predictable. At least for now–but as soon as he turns three, I’m hitting him with his first spontaneous dance party.