The Butterfly Effect

 

At work the other day, I had an unexpected philosophical talk with a co-worker about a number of different topics, from politics to religious thoughts.  In between our discussion about the direction of the US and our thoughts on Christianity and organized religion, she suggested a rather interesting thought on the Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut.

What irked her most about the shooting, besides the tragic loss of so many lives, was that she believed if one person, just one, decided to have reached out to the shooter prior to the incident, maybe it could've been prevented.  First, I thought she was sympathizing with him and placing the blame on other people.  But as she continued to explain, it began to make a little sense.

She told me that if one person had decided to reach out and see how he was doing, and tried to be a friend to him, maybe the outcome would've been different.  I mean, we'd never know, right?  It was already done.  He already did it.  But if a random person decided to be kind to him, maybe that would've impacted him just enough that he wouldn't have committed those killings.  I'm not suggesting people were unkind, but rather, people more than likely were just indifferent.  Also, I'm not justifying what he did.  Nothing justifies it.  Hear me out.

Let me put it this way: when you walk through the halls of your school or at the mall, you interact with dozens of people.  Sometimes you make eye contact with random individuals or you see someone you know.  But those people you've never met; the faces without any names mean little or nothing to you, generally speaking.  You don't care where they're headed.  It doesn't matter to you.  There's just no relationship there.

And in today's world, where we must get to where we're going faster than anyone else, and we're always sucked in on our phones, on Facebook, other social media crap, the real people seem a lot smaller.

Basically, most people you see on a regular basis are insignificant to you.

I don't know a lot of the details about Adam Lanza, the shooter.  I'm also not a psychologist or anything close.  But that's what my friend was trying to say; he maybe felt insignificant.  He wasn't social. Why?  Maybe because people didn't accept him into their little groups.  Maybe people avoided him because of his Aspherger's.  Maybe he avoided people because he assumed people would avoid him.  Maybe he just sucked terribly at being social so he just never tried.  Maybe there was some embarrassing thing that took place in elementary school that resulted in the other kids isolating him.  Who knows?

I remember being that kid in elementary school, the one who reads more than plays, who cared about his grades, and only had a few friends.  I was always picked last for the basketball games during recess.  I don't blame them.  I sucked.  I still do.  But, when a friend of mine decided to pick me first because he wanted me on his team since we were friends... it felt good.  I always remember being overjoyed when someone decided to do that.  And that affected my attitude for the rest of the day.  It strengthened my self-esteem and my relationships.

When we moved into town and I had to go to a new school, I was terrified that I wouldn't make any friends.  But when I did, and a few random guys accepted me into their little circle, I was happy.  It meant a lot.  They didn't have to try to be friends with me.  They didn't have to accept me.  But they did.

If I'd been shunned, would I have become a shooter and killed a bunch of people?  Probably not... I'd hope not.  But the choices others made in their relationships with me, no matter how small or big, affected me.

My friend thinks that if one person just decided to befriend him, it would've affected him in some way, and more than likely in a positive one.

People always talk about heroes and how they kill the bad guy or stop him from doing bad things.  But this raised an interesting thought...

What if we could all be heroes?  What if instead of stopping the killer from killing, we could prevent him from becoming a killer to begin with?  How, you ask?  The butterfly effect.  I'm going to call it the First Theorem of the Butterfly Effect.

The First Theorem of the Butterfly Effect suggests that by committing random acts of kindness, you will have a positive effect on other people which 1.) will make you a better person and 2.) make that person a better person.  By being kind to one person, unconditionally, that person will have a greater chance of being nice to another person or persons.

And I guess we could go with idea that some people are just bad.  Some people are just going to do bad things regardless of how kind the world is to them.  Maybe that's true... but they had to have been good at some point.  Or at least in between.  Something made them bad.  Something pushed them to the dark side.

I just love this idea of butterfly effects.  It suggests a few things.

 1.) Small occurrences have effects on larger ones.  The primary thought behind this would be how a butterfly's wings could have an effect on a hurricane, or even be part of the cause behind it.  While that is extreme and incredibly unlikely, it helps illustrate what it means.  It suggests that a small act, such as a "Hey, how are you doing?" text, could help improve someone's crappy day.  Something that takes you a minute to do could change an hour of someone's life.

2.) Good actions will affect people in a good way.  In India, around the 7th century, a guy named Brahmagupta developed a theory, which I'm going to coin the Law of Positives and Negatives which basically said (and it's common sense now, of course) that if you add a negative to zero, you get a negative, and a positive you get a positive.  He used "fortune" and "debt" in place of positive and negative (so if you subtract a fortune from zero, you get a debt, and if you subtract a debt from zero, you get a fortune).  Therefore, the BE suggests if you positively interact with someone, you will more than likely positively effect that person.

So, if you choose to first, do small things and do small positive things, you could have a great and positive effect on someone else.

Once again, this is a theorem, not a "law," and just a few thoughts from your local Radioshack employees.

"What if we could all be heroes?  What if instead of stopping the killer from killing, we could prevent him from becoming a killer to begin with?"

Today, and for the rest of this week, keep this in mind.  Each person you interact with, no matter how minor or major the exchange is, be kind.  Realize that regardless of what you can gain from it or how much of an impact that person has on you, they are still significant, somehow.  Realize that everything you do will add up.  And that you could be that unforeseen hero, and you could change a life.

I can't say how or when, but I believe at some point it kind of does come down to this.  Besides preventing someone from becoming a killer with our kindness, it should be how we interact with others anyway.

Just some food for thought.  Nom.

 

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