In complex environments, it’s easy to feel like chaos is in charge. People react before thinking. Politics override performance.
Showing up with calm and competent integrity can seem actively threatening to those around you.
There’s a fascinating concept in chaos theory about strange attractors.
In chaos theory, a strange attractor is a mathematical pattern that comes up consistently in complex and nonlinear systems. These systems never settle into a single, stable state. Instead, they orbit around a shape of possibility that pulls their behaviour without determining it.
The term was popularized in part through the study of the Lorenz system (link to source) a model for atmospheric convection that demonstrated how simple deterministic equations could lead to chaotic and structured behaviour. The butterfly-shaped Lorenz attractor is one of the most iconic examples.
So how does this apply to people?
When you’re surrounded by emotional reasoning and volatility, you may find yourself acting as a strange attractor of stability, you’re not even trying to lead anything, but you’re refusing to follow the chaos.
You can accidentally become a strange attractor of stability by:
Showing up with consistency, when others react emotionally
Offer clarity, when the system thrives on ambiguity
Document decisions, when others rely on memory or narrative spin
Stay steady, even when you are the only one
In many dysfunctional systems, the prevailing “attractor” is insecurity and volatile emotion. People unconsciously orbit it because it’s familiar, and volatility becomes the currency of influence.
It can be disorienting for systems when someone responds differently, but this isn’t about you as a person, it’s about patterns and contrasts within complex systems.
You accidentally break the loop.
You may be functioning differently within it, and that difference can become a source of balance.
What they’re reacting to isn’t you.
It’s the contrast between your inner stability and their inner chaos.
So what do you do?
You stay the strange attractor. You hold your shape. You may never fully fit into the system. You stop expecting the system to validate your behaviour, and instead, trust that your steadiness has a purpose, even if it’s not immediately understood.
In systems theory, even a subtle strange attractor, if consistent, can gradually reshape the behaviour of the entire systems, and consistent patterns create new possibilities.
Take Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of the great unifiers of Japan. People didn’t always understand him in the moment. He was underestimated, misjudged and even seen as cold or overly cautious. In hindsight, he was building systems, and he helped pull a chaotic country into 250 years of relative peace.
Ieyasu didn’t control every variable, no one really does in a nonlinear system. His consistent presence introduced a counter-pattern into the environment, and that contrast redefined what was considered viable behavior.
This is how systems often evolve by contrast with a single, persistent, consistent pattern that becomes a reference point. Others begin to orient around it, first in opposition, attacking the strange attractor, then unconsciously they start copying it.
In this way, a strange attractor doesn’t need to dominate the system to change it. It just needs to persist.
Time as the greatest teacher
The lesson I got from Ieyasu is about time.
In a chaotic system, endurance is key, the ability to hold a shape over time gives that shape power. When others burn out or pivot, the pattern that remains becomes the foundation of what’s next.
Consistent patterns create new possibilities. Builders like Ieyasu outlast sentiment with systems.
And even the most chaotic systems will eventually orbit around what endures.
Legacy hierarchy and ambiguity were once survival strategies. Today, they stall trust and clarity. This reflection explores what truly scales in modern systems, and what we must leave behind to lead with care and reorient with truth.
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On strange attractors
In complex environments, it’s easy to feel like chaos is in charge. People react before thinking. Politics override performance.
Showing up with calm and competent integrity can seem actively threatening to those around you.
There’s a fascinating concept in chaos theory about strange attractors.
In chaos theory, a strange attractor is a mathematical pattern that comes up consistently in complex and nonlinear systems. These systems never settle into a single, stable state. Instead, they orbit around a shape of possibility that pulls their behaviour without determining it.
The term was popularized in part through the study of the Lorenz system (link to source) a model for atmospheric convection that demonstrated how simple deterministic equations could lead to chaotic and structured behaviour. The butterfly-shaped Lorenz attractor is one of the most iconic examples.
So how does this apply to people?
When you’re surrounded by emotional reasoning and volatility, you may find yourself acting as a strange attractor of stability, you’re not even trying to lead anything, but you’re refusing to follow the chaos.
You can accidentally become a strange attractor of stability by:
In many dysfunctional systems, the prevailing “attractor” is insecurity and volatile emotion. People unconsciously orbit it because it’s familiar, and volatility becomes the currency of influence.
It can be disorienting for systems when someone responds differently, but this isn’t about you as a person, it’s about patterns and contrasts within complex systems.
You accidentally break the loop.
You may be functioning differently within it, and that difference can become a source of balance.
What they’re reacting to isn’t you.
It’s the contrast between your inner stability and their inner chaos.
So what do you do?
You stay the strange attractor. You hold your shape. You may never fully fit into the system. You stop expecting the system to validate your behaviour, and instead, trust that your steadiness has a purpose, even if it’s not immediately understood.
In systems theory, even a subtle strange attractor, if consistent, can gradually reshape the behaviour of the entire systems, and consistent patterns create new possibilities.
Take Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of the great unifiers of Japan. People didn’t always understand him in the moment. He was underestimated, misjudged and even seen as cold or overly cautious. In hindsight, he was building systems, and he helped pull a chaotic country into 250 years of relative peace.
Ieyasu didn’t control every variable, no one really does in a nonlinear system. His consistent presence introduced a counter-pattern into the environment, and that contrast redefined what was considered viable behavior.
This is how systems often evolve by contrast with a single, persistent, consistent pattern that becomes a reference point. Others begin to orient around it, first in opposition, attacking the strange attractor, then unconsciously they start copying it.
In this way, a strange attractor doesn’t need to dominate the system to change it. It just needs to persist.
Time as the greatest teacher
The lesson I got from Ieyasu is about time.
In a chaotic system, endurance is key, the ability to hold a shape over time gives that shape power. When others burn out or pivot, the pattern that remains becomes the foundation of what’s next.
Consistent patterns create new possibilities.
Builders like Ieyasu outlast sentiment with systems.
And even the most chaotic systems will eventually orbit around what endures.
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