I believe chaos is a part of life indeed, but I don't think it's a guaranteed or absolute state. Order and entropy are a sort of yin and yang - they coexist in a state of dis/function, through evershifting ratios of the polarities.

The alchemical "great work" has been known to be the transmutation of lead into gold. From another perspective, one could say that the great work is the transmutation of chaos into order - turning corruptible base materials such as lead, into the brilliance and perfection of something that couldn't be any more perfect - it has reached it's ultimate state of order. Gold was the classic symbol of such a state or substance.

I would go so far as to say that our individual and collective purpose is to carry out this alchemical great work by taking the base materials of our lives and transmuting it into the perfected philosophers stone of internal and external order. Perfection. Completion.

The real question is, is the work ever actually completed?

It would seem as though the striving towards the actualization of a noble ideal has the inherent power to inspire human development.

Art itself is an alchemical process of turning chaos into order.

There is no limit to the size and scope of what can be built with the substance all around us.