Life in the Clothes Dryer

Most people see life as a linear progression, a canoe ride on the river of time. The scenery passes. The sun rises and sets. Occasionally there is a storm.

It’s a tempting metaphor because we often think of time flowing like a river and to see ourselves as passengers on that river is a natural extension. But my life hasn’t been like that and I’ll bet yours hasn’t either.

I see us as boulders tumbling down a mountainside, our rough edges smoothed by all the hard places we encounter that make us older and wiser. 

We’re not often sure which way is up.

Time is the gravity we cannot resist, the energy behind this avalanche called life. Before a thing is dealt with another is upon us and as we turn to it we’re bumped from behind because we don’t have time for this while the telephone rings and someone is at the door and then we go over a cliff.

I didn’t see that coming. Did you?

It’s hard to tell a person who you are because you are so many things.

Quantum Theory was born when Werner Heisenberg published his Uncertainty Principle in 1927. He wrote, “It is impossible to determine accurately both the position and the direction and speed of a particle at the same instant.” His Uncertainty Principle opened the door to Chaos Theory and Fractal Geometry, the mapping of chaotic systems.

Like you and me, Heisenberg lived the avalanche. 

I HAD ALREADY WRITTEN EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE

and was staring at the computer screen unsure of what to write next when “ding,” a little pop-up alerted me that one of my business partners, Manley Miller, had just sent me an email:

Have you ever heard of the Droste effect?

Apparently it’s Fractals + Portals. 

I clicked the hyperlink in Manley’s email and was greeted by a video that illustrated precisely what I was trying to describe. Manley’s boulder was evidently tumbling next to mine. I spent some time reading about the Droste Effect and said, “Wow. What I’m feeling is so common that it even has a name.”

Here’s the weird part: No one on earth could have known what I was thinking and feeling in that moment. I had just received some unexpected news that caused me to lean against the wall, unable to focus my eyes. Stumbling to the computer I pecked out the words, “Life in the Clothes Dryer” and wrote the nine paragraphs at the top of this page. I didn’t plan to send them to you but then Manley’s email arrived.

The Droste Effect is a powerful tool that combines the visual suction of a spiral with the infinity of a picture-within-a-picture-within-a-picture. The result is that the viewer is pulled into the alternate reality of a fractal image, the map of a highly specific infinity, one of the “many worlds” predicted by Quantum Theory.

Variations of this visual technique will likely prove to be highly effective in online marketing. Do you want someone to click a button? Sprinkle a little Droste into the mix and watch what happens.

Manley recognized the Droste Effect as a simple combination of fractals and portals because he remembered studying each of these in Wizard Academy’s Magical Worlds Communications Workshop and the even-more-advanced sequel to that class, Advanced Thought Particles (including Portals and the 12 Languages of the Mind.)

These classes are taught back-to-back just once every other year.

February 20-24, 2012.  I can hardly wait. It’s a wild, wild ride.

Roy H. Williams