Cause, Meet Effect
You can singlehandedly create a causal relation between two things that are currently unconnected — a word and an emotion, a song and an extreme weather event, wearing a certain color and winning the lottery. What cause would you link to what effect, and why?
In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions where a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large changes to a later state. The butterfly effect is a common trope in fiction, especially in time travel.
I am a butterfly. I flap my dainty wings, then a tornado tears through Oklahoma. Would not flying at that precise minute, at that moment in time, have prevented the tornado?
I am a robin. I flap my dainty wings, after which a hurricane blows across an island in the Caribbean. If I had stayed on that fence, would the hurricane have passed by, unformed? If I had flown sooner, would the wind have blown in a different direction?
Cause, meet effect. In reality, in fantasy, in the tunnels of time.
Do we really know what the effect is or will be when we do (or fail to do) anything … any more than the butterfly or the robin can predict the ultimate result of his or her wings?
I can imagine many answers. But I have more questions … many more than I have answers.
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Lost in the Winner’s Circle 
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Marvelous. Love the photo, love the meditation. 🙂
xo,
Kathryn
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Thank you 🙂
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An interesting thought. Love the photo. 😀
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It really IS all about the photo 🙂 I wanted to use that picture. Everything else followed.
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Correlation does not equal causation, but the patterns of coincidence are sometimes things of beauty… or at least a source of amusement. 🙂
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Too deep for me 😀
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I love the Chaos Theory, it started for me when I read Dr. Seuss’s book All Because a Bug Went Ka choo or something along those lines. Ever since then, and that was a long time ago, the Chaos Theory has been my guiding philosophy.
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It makes more sense that anything else I’ve encountered. At least it doesn’t pretend there’s some logic or reason involved!
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I think it is these moments when I realise that I have been isolated from the english language for too much time, however, our robins only appear in Winter. I have one that sits sentinel on the tree in front of our window daily. He does not eat with the other birds, far too posh. He likes to dine alone on the ground. A real gourmet.
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Robins — ours too — are ground feeders. They are great at pulling the grubs up. One years we had a real infestation of grubs and a whole flock of robins came and ate them all — saved our lawn. It was amazing and they were fat and happy.
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They wait patiently for the blackbirds to finish and then they clear away the rest, the cleaners of the gang
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They have a great work ethic. They didn’t leave a single grub uneaten 🙂
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Great picture of the robin- and quite the philosophical post to go with it 🙂
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Philosophy is what you write when you have nothing more solid to say 🙂
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This is why I tend to just sit and vegetate for long periods of time. I would feel really bad if I got up to do something and that movement caused world devastation….
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I hear you. Inaction seems neutral … but what if NOT doing anything is what causes world devastation? Huh? You can run, but you cannot hide.
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Poetic flavour…..hmmm lovely picture of Robin fluttering her wings.
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Honestly, I wrote the piece so I could use that picture 🙂 I didn’t have a butterfly, but I had my robin!
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Robin looks perfect.
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Your last line sounds like the last line of some of my faux news reports before I signed off. The “suits” loved those reports.
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It’s what you say when you don’t have anything to say. That’s what poetry is for, right? I really just wanted to use the picture of the robin.
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