how often do we keep track of the butterfly effects happening throughout our lives every day?
for me, it’s quite often. for example: in 2020, I was bored doing online driver’s education (there was a minimum hour requirement far in excess of the actual content that needed to be covered, so there was a great deal of padding, and i don’t need to justify myself to you anyway) and so i spent a great deal of time watching a twitch streamer, jorbs, play slay the spire.
now i’m transferring to a different college in the fall, and if i hadn’t done that, i wouldn’t be transferring (at least, not to this college. or if i did, it would be by a different incredibly unlikely series of events.)
if i hadn’t made that seemingly inconsequential decision—if my youtube recommendation feed had popped up some other guy instead of jorbs—my life would be on a completely different course. two roads diverged in a wood, and i—i didn’t even realize i was making a choice until i looked back four years later and said huh. if i hadn’t done that everything might be different.
(for those curious about the specific domino chain of events between these things, it’s because i joined jorbs’ discord server, and became an active member of the community there for several years, and then fell in love with someone who was there with me, and then fell in love with several other people they introduced me to, all of whom go to the same college, so i visited, attended some classes because i was curious what they were like, and liked them so much that i got back from the trip and immediately started filling out an application to transfer.)
keeping track of this and other such butterfly effects in my life kind of keeps me humble. as much as i like to think that i am the Big Important Decision Maker in my own life, the most important outcomes happening to me right now started from tiny decisions, and some decisions i thought would matter a whole lot really don’t mean a thing to me anymore.
to me it’s reminiscent of the argument that susan blackmore makes at the close of her book the meme machine.
academically, a meme is a cultural unit of replication—that is, a gene, but instead of biological matter, it’s idea matter. ideas, after all, copy themselves, using us as hosts—so they probably evolve too, right? those evolving ideas are memes, first theorized by richard dawkins in the ’70s. i have a video about it if you feel like learning more.
susan blackmore basically thinks that all human cognitive activity is the result of these memes—that conscious thought, the very self, is a construct that exists because it contributes to the replication of memes (kind of like bodies just exist to contribute to the replication of genes, they have come to serve other functions too, but at a low level that is the purpose).
the self is a big collection of self-replicating ideas, she says, and its purpose is to keep replicating ideas even more. lots of our fundamental desires, right down to the idea that we are in control of ourselves, can fit very well with this definition of the self.
but—she notes—we don’t need to align ourselves with any particular idea for decisions to arise, preconsciously. driving home and not sure what route to take? let yourself get to the critical intersection without deciding, and your body and brain will do something without ‘your’ input.
you—you, conscious—are nowhere near as important to your preconscious mind as you have convinced yourself you are.
it kind of comes across as nihilistic almost. nothing ‘you’ do matters, let go of all involvement in ‘your’ actions because things will happen whether you will them to or not.
but thinking about butterfly effects, thinking about how the most beautiful things in my life all fell into place by complete accident on the back of a random decision i didn’t even consciously make four years ago—
it doesn’t seem so nihilistic anymore.
the most important things aren’t ones we’ll see coming—so why bother spending so much energy trying? just exist, and try to do it well, and let your preconscious mind work without trying to get so deeply involved with it all.
sometimes we call that flow state, sometimes it’s being in the zone.
i think about it almost like letting go, and being taken on the wings of a butterfly.
(this post originally published 28 May 2024)
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