‘Stochasticity’ – lacking any predictable plan or order. Irregularity.

My wonderful friend Anna just introduced me to a RadioLab episode exploring how Stochasticity (a ridiculous, wonderful word for randomness) is at the very foundation of our lives.

Scientists recently worked out how to watch this fundamental process of genes making proteins in ecoli cells. They worked out how to make the genes emit light each time they made a protein. They expected this ‘basic’ process, the building blocks of all life, to be very regular, like clockwork. They expected to see a steady glow of light, rhythmic and organised. However what they found was the complete opposite. The flicks of light, the creation of proteins by genes was at complete random. It was totally chaotic. A cacophony of noise, a fluctuating, ‘sloppy’, messy, randomness. They watched the first ecoli do it’s thing and it flickered and sputtered. They assumed maybe it was a ‘defective’ gene but then the second one was also completely chaotic BUT in it’s own unique way, even though it was a genetically identical ecoli organism. At the deep root of our DNA, where genes make proteins, there is complete chaos.

My rudimentary attempt of explaining the process does not do it justice so Go listen to the podcast! BUT I find it fascinating and completely liberating to know that all the way down at the very bottom of who we are there is complete chaos. Chaos forms this regulated, incredible miracle that is us. We wake up, we go to sleep, we get hungry, we eat, our heart beat is regular. But all of this comes from CHAOS!

This may explain why I love chaos. Why I gravitate towards the mystical, magical, unexplainable phenomena in life. When the world swirls like gelato I hold your hand and rejoice because I REMEMBER how exquisitely beautiful it is to be alive. Chaos reins supreme.