The Butterfly Effect

The concept popularly known as the "Butterfly Effect" plays a role in popular culture as well as scientific endeavor, where it appears in such disciplines as meteorology, econometrics, social sciences and engineering under the general umbrella of "Chaos Theory."

In popular culture, it usually goes like this: "If a butterfly on Mount Fujiyama flaps its wings, it may cause a tornado in Kansas." In the scientific realm of chaos theory, it may be stated, "Small variations in the initial conditions of a dynamic system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. " The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale phenomena. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different.

I have thistles in my front yard which are beautiful and, for me, sentimental when they are in bloom, but quite literally a roaring pain when it's time to get rid of them, which was today. Only a few purple blooms remain. But just as I was about to hack away, a butterfly arrived. I put down the blade and ran instead for my camera. The butterfly, as you can see, was quite cooperative. For a moment I imagined that he/she (how can one tell?) was posing for me.

That, in turn, caused my thoughts to drift to a rather engaging ongoing dialog regarding ego and my posit that one's concept of onesself ("egotism" in the value-neutral sense of the word) can run a broad spectrum from points which I had arbitrarily labeled "being comfortable with who you are" to narcissism. I'm not sure where along that spectrum one might apply the value-loaded label "egotist," as in "He's such an egotist!"

Soon after, I came upon a Japanese beetle, no friend of even a casual gardener like me. The little thing was devouring a leaf, as Japanese beetles will do, and I had the instinctive negative reaction, although it was a leaf unattached to anything of particular beauty. And I'm sure the copper-shiny little critters are here for a reason. I thought of being too quick to scowl or even to judge. Perhaps, after sated with this leaf, this very beetle will excrete the fully processed roughage, adding in some small way to the fertility of this small plot of garden (such as it is), and make the thistles bloom just a little brighter next season. Or perhaps it will be gobbled up in mid-flight as a tasty, if somewhat crunchy, morsel by one of the kestrels which Cousin Roman has identified as the pair of large, gracefully soaring birds that briefly visited the skies over the Lake today.

Gathering up the now decimated thistle into an old sheet (a trick my #1 sister taught me with leaves), I hauled the load up the side stairs to the upper terrace and thence to the "mulch pile." It's a poor sort of mulch pile, but Helen and Roman promised to remedy this on their next visit. Everyone should be so fortunate to have relatives who spend a couple hours pulling weeds and raking last fall's leaves out of the bushes (he said with embarrassment) when they come for a visit. But I digress.

Frankly a bit winded after lugging the full load of thistles up the embankment, I sat down in the grass to enjoy the view of the Lake for a few moments. (Happily, my new little camera gem was in my pocket.)

But then, resting in the grass, I noticed a little sparkle of dew. You can't see it in this web-enabled (so to speak) photograph, but there were little strands of web holding the water droplets like a crowd of tightrope walkers. I was certain I could construct a Butterfly Effect interpretation of this remarkable visual treat with little effort, but by now, my thoughts had shifted into I different vein and it occured to me that the Butterfly Effect applies not only to butterflies, Japanese beetles and invisible spiders, but certainly to people as well. And people, with their behaviors, affect other people and their behaviors, and pretty soon you are into interpersonal relationships and societal development and things like "English Only Spoken Here," and weapons of mass destruction and, well, chaos! Or, you could decide to be one who smiles at someone on the street because you are happy with your lot in life and want to share it a bit, not because you are an egotist, but because maybe that person will smile at the next one and eventually it prevents, or at least delays, the doomsday scenarios that seem to be lurking in the bushes these days.

I walked down the steep steps of my back yard full of awe that here in my little domain dwell the solutions to all the world's problems.