I bring to you a shallow philosophical anecdote:

The pants I buy are not extravagant or expensive, or in any way remarkable. I get them off the same shelf in the same department store in the same mall every time I need a shakeup of my wardrobe. I’m not a picky or enthusiastic shopper. To me, clothes are tedious little formalities that I have to go through from time to time, much like haircuts and the occasional physical.

The last time I bought pants I found a pair on the sale rack that had little holes in them where the fabric had failed, or at least been made to look that way. The holes were intended to give these jeans a rugged, fashionable, these-pants-have-a-friggin’-story look. They were a bargain, and I needed pants, so in spite of their obvious – albeit, deliberate and culturally acceptable – flaws, I bought them.

I’m not complaining about the integrity of the jeans, but they once put me in a weird position. The other morning, as I was getting dressed, they happened to be the ones I grabbed out of my drawer. As I was pulling them on, my toe caught in one of the holes on the way through, which tore the fabric slightly with a distinct little ripping sound.

I immediately cringed and tensed up, as if I had just done something terrible. I scrambled to examine the damage and, to my relief, found that it wasn’t all that devastating. In fact, it blended fairly well with the original hole.

That’s when I caught myself, rather surprised at my own ridiculous concern over the tear I had just torn. I thought to myself, “Shouldn’t I be okay with this?” After all, jeans with rips in the fabric are very trendy, and this way one of the holes has at least a small degree of legitimacy. I didn’t intend to tear the material, it just happened, in an arbitrary, cosmic sort of way, an image people like to fabricate with their clothes anyway (pardon the pun).

That’s when I understood that the question of intent was the principle I was grappling with. However acceptable the outcome was, the events leading to the tear were not in cadence with my overall design.

Even though the tear was entirely acceptable, and perhaps even enhanced the overall look of the jeans, I did not in any way intend to rip them. It just happened, unexpectedly and out of my control.

The Joker taught us that if you disrupt the established order, everything becomes chaos. Even though the outcome of the tear was arguably positive (or, at the very least, not unacceptable), the tear itself was not premeditated, not part of the planned series of events that dictate how I get dressed or treat my clothes. It was an arbitrary event that randomly disrupted my notion of a successful endeavor. Society calls this “an accident.”

The very same day, I was on my bike to work when something even more drastic and exciting happened: wearing the same pair of jeans, my foot slipped on the pedal and I kind of tripped forward. A groove in my handle bar snagged the exact same hole in the exact same place, this time tearing it beyond aesthetic boundaries: a perfect seam running at a perfect right angle.

This time, I was pretty crushed, not only at the embarrassment of having tripped in such a comically slapstick way, but at the realization that this time there were no questions. I was now officially down a pair of jeans.

The tear is a reminder of just how sacred the idea of control is. Even the original holes, accents designed to give the illusion of ruggedness and wear, were probably the culmination of at least several minutes of conversation and brainstorming. They didn’t just cosmically happen there; intelligent designers willed them into being.

I was taught a lesson that day, my eyes opened to the truth that the chaos that people try to fake is still rife with creative control. True chaos startles us, makes us realize that there are forces underfoot that can very easily upset the balances with which we cushion our delicate selves. True comfort is nothing less than utter control, and anything otherwise is scary and upsetting.

There are probably scores of pants being worn around that look vintage and worn-in, the exact same shape and tone as mine. The day I come across a pair, rest assured: I’m going to make a note of it and laugh quietly to myself, with the air and weightlessness of true enlightenment.