So-Called Chaos

although there is better on the album, I think this song is really powerful

I think she's saying, yeah, because of her lifestyle, she has loadsa demands on her, but she's saying bring it on! She's inviting the people that seem to think she can't manage it to give her more to do, but at the same time saying she can cope without all these limitations, she can handle disorganisation, she hasn't become dependant on anything...do you think?

I beleive that in this song alanis is speaking our lives or the lives of modern society as well as her own. Not only is she expressing the experience of oppression by schedules, pressure and expectations but declaring her intense desire for freedom - to be naked running through the streets with no limitation but the shoes upon her feet.

And then - this just get clear to me yesterday - the bridge - "I won't be lost if I'm governed by my own inateness" etc. is her embrasing a new truth - that perhaps she can drop all the worldly pressures and trust herself, be present, act from her intuition, live by her own rules and all wil bel well "(trust me)".

thanks for giving me a place to share this.

One of the things that endears her most to me (maybe even =the= thing, really) is that Al can tolerate ambiguity and conflict -- and then =talk= about it -- like almost no one else I've ever encountered. I've seen people who can =do= this as well as people who can =describe= the capacity (conceptually) as a (probably unattainable) life goal.

Those who can do it are usually CEOs, presidents, big-time talent managers and "leaders of the free world." Those who can describe it are usually poets or psychology professors. But someone who can do it =and= describe it? For me, at least, that's rare.

Alanis may or may not be addicted to both perfection and stimulation after 23 years at her trade, but regardless of whether she is or isn't, she does a pretty fair job of racing along on the tips of the pickets without falling off (for long). Yeah; she gains 30 lbs. here and blows it off in two months there (probably =not= a great idea), but the persona she manages to present to the world on stage or across the table in an interview is so =conscious= and "on top of it" that whatever chaos there is in her (200-mile-per-hour?) life =seems= under control.

The woman journals and meditates a lot. So do I since I started paying attention to her 13 years ago. =I= can handle a lot more ambiguity, conflict and chaos as a result. Maybe that's how =she= does it.