The Badlands landscape abounds in patterns. Anyone who has been there can surely call to mind its iconic buttes, eroded in vertical waves that reveal horizontal striations. Once you’ve seen one, you know what to expect along the scenic drive. Sometimes they tower above you, and other times the seemingly endless prairie suddenly disappears as the wind-and-water-shaped stone spills down from the grassy plain. But high or low, the buttes are a symbol of the rhythmic and predictable forces that made them the recognizable masses of sediment that they are.
Buttes aren’t the only evidence of nature’s pattern work in the Badlands. The blades of grass, all springing forth towards the sun in rows that bend in the breeze. The dark seeds at the center of each sunflower, forming a perfect half-sphere surrounded by a circle of equally-sized yellow petals. The stripes on the bee climbing up the sunflower’s stalk on its way to collect pollen.
The Power of Patterns
Patterns are powerful. They are efficient in creating and sustaining ecosystems, in continuing the circle of life (itself a repeating pattern). They help us make sense of our world and the wonders we find in it. Knowing what “box” something fits into gives us a starting point to dive deeper in our understanding of it. The layered striations of the buttes tell the story of the region’s geological history. Their wavy crevices lay bare the weather systems at work over time.
I often find it’s that way with people, too. That’s why polls and surveys ask demographic questions – to make sense of voting blocs and understanding target audiences. People who finally receive a diagnosis after years of wondering why they weren’t “normal” often experience a huge sense of relief just being able to name what they thought was an anomaly unique to them and from there find a community of others with similar experiences. This was certainly what happened for me when I came into my own as an introvert in 2015 (thank you, Susan Cain!). Who hasn’t thrilled at finding “their people” when similar values, beliefs, and interests are uncovered?
A Place to Start
Knowing whether someone grew up American, Kenyan, Australian, or Thai gives us a place to begin our understanding of the forces that shaped them. The same can be said of their political stances, religious beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, education, income level, and any other set of multiple choice responses. We can look at a group of people and predict how they will generally react to something, what they will like or take a stand against.
What we can’t do, however, is predict how an individual within that demographic will respond. We won’t be able to learn a person’s unique passions, talents, hopes, and dreams by knowing what groups they fall into. What makes a person tick is found in getting to know them as an individual. The patterns give a foundation to start from, and digging deeper from there is where the gold is found.
Boxes and String
Take me for example. I am a white, American (specifically Southern Californian), cis-hetero-female with generally Protestant Christian religious beliefs and left-to-progressive political stances. Each one of those groups gives you a piece of information about me, some of which may appear contradictory. You may wonder what sort of box to put me in while beginning to make sense of who I am. And that’s just the point – we can put each other into boxes based on what we know of the groups they’re in, but this can only be temporary if we really want to be in relationship with someone.
It reminds me of a particular math assignment in college where my group had to teach the class about fractals. I still can’t say I understand them, but the concept of ever-increasing detail leading to infinity has stuck with me. The example we used was the coast of Great Britain. We had three different maps, and each one had an increasing level of detail. The first was a very basic coastline traced with a piece of string. The string for the second was longer as it had to cover more twists and curves. The third string was more than twice the length of the first as it wound its way around the island. The idea was that you can keep increasing the level of detail on and on to infinity at a molecular level and beyond.
Don’t Fence Me In!
I think it’s the same way with people. We get to know the basics about someone and think we have a good understanding of who they are. But then we learn more, and the string gets longer. A conversation reveals an experience that shaped them differently from the groups they generally identify with, and the string gets longer. And the string keeps getting longer until we realize that even within their group identities, their uniqueness is infinite.
This is true in nature, too. No bees’ stripes are identical. Those perfect flower petals aren’t precisely the same length, or width, or even shape. The rows of flowing prairie grass have variations in color, size, and thickness. Those butte crevices that look so similar from a distance turn out to be quite distinct up close. Even those seemingly straight striated layers are covered in individual bumps, hard spots, soft spots, dips, curves, and colors that are unique to each one.
So yes – marvel in the patterns found in nature and in humanity. Find the wonder and commonalities that link us all together. But don’t get stuck there. Seek the variety within the patterns. Enjoy discovering the unique twists and turns that require an infinite piece of string to map.
Leave a Reply