Okay, I’ve been off the track since a while now and I feel terrible about that. There were some things that kept me bound to them and I really couldn’t let myself free. But now, I’m here again to tell you about everything you would love to read.

So, I’ve racked my brains again. Since a couple of days I’ve been fascinated by the butterfly effect. No, I’m not talking about the Ashton Kutcher starred movie, I’m talking about the actual butterfly effect. That one thing that can compel us to ponder beyond the very limits of our imagination. So what is it? What’s so very fascinating about the butterfly effect?

To begin with, let me first explain you what does the butterfly effect mean. When a small and absolutely insignificant thing in the past changes course of things to a very large extent in the future, the whole phenomenon is called the butterfly effect. Picture this, you are going on a sea voyage. The moment you begin your journey, your vessel deflects by a degree or so. Now that may really not seem much in the beginning, but when you travel a thousand miles or so with that one degree error, you’ll find yourself far away from your desired destination. That’s the butterfly effect in simple terms. It means that when you begin with accuracy, you reach accurately where you want to. But if you begin approximately accurate, your approximation ends up causing a large error of judgement. This is the logical part of the butterfly effect. But wait, there is more to come.

The butterfly effect works on a collective level. It can contain anything and everything. It means that any entity, large or small, in any place on this earth, near or farther from the place of the occurrence of the result, at any point of time in the history of the earth can alter events. This is the illogical part. It leads us to the conclusion that a slight action of someone in the year 726 A. D. in the European plains can affect the present situation that you are facing. Imagine! A dinosaur’s fart in Gondwanaland can decide whether Congress will win or lose the 2014 Elections! Now if we keep these imaginations and funny part aside, a wise man will see a bit of disappointment here. Is this logical? Doesn’t really look like it is. It is called the butterfly effect because of the commonly used example that says, a butterfly’s flapping of wings two months ago can create or prevent a tornado. But logically, this cannot be seen. And wise men never believe anything unless it is logically proved. But wait, why can’t we be wiser this time? Instead of just seeing the logic, why can’t we look for it?

This is where I began racking my brains. Where is the logic here? My mother tells me a lot of times about how can everything around us affect our life. She says that all people in our life, however insignificant they may seem to us, are very important in making us what we are. And every little thing we do, every act of valor, foolishness, love, hatred, and responsibility equally matters. To me, all that always seemed like something spiritual and a bit old school, but now, when I persuade the logic of the butterfly effect, I see that what my mom has told me fits in here. My mother might have told this to me taking in account the simple phenomenon of curses and blessings. Every person in your life makes some observations about you. Simple observations to judge you on a broad scale in the categories of good and bad. If they find you good, they will bless you and if they find you bad, they will accordingly curse you. Now let’s make it more practical. Blessings mean the person will spread a good word about you and curses mean they will tell people how sick you are. That’s it. They act as your public profile. They tell others what they see inside you. And when these other people tell more people about your goodness, it all multiplies and you stand up as a respected person in the society. So what a person judges about you in one meeting can decide whether you will gain the respect of the world or not. Butterfly effect.

And I still do not understand how can it be seen logically on a broader scale. I mean how can a person drinking wine in 753 BC in Rome affect my engineering result? But nothing is as mad as we think. All we need to do is break it down to simpler and practical terms. Remember how implausible and crazy we found it when the witch told Macbeth not to fear death ‘till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane’, but later we saw how simple and possible it actually was. Same rule is applicable here. We have to ponder and make it simpler. The difference is just that it is a little tougher this time.

I can still make a wild guess. If we consider the butterfly effect’s widely used example, we can push things back to a great extent. Look, it’s not just the flapping of the butterfly’s wings that will decide the tornado’s future. For the butterfly to flap it’s wings, it should stay alive first. So we must actually thank the boy who didn’t crush the initial caterpillar from which the butterfly developed. But he didn’t crush the caterpillar only because his mom called him to have his breakfast. So here the mother of the boy is important. And the mother could prepare the breakfast just in time because the milkman delivered the milk at the right time. Now, it goes back to the milk-man. This can be a very lengthy and retrospective process. I’ll call it as the ‘butterfly retreat’. And on the basis of this theory of mine, if we consider the earth to be a closed system, we can relate everything that happens around us to that first sign of life: the amoeba. Looks simple now, doesn’t it?

This is one thing that can open doors for a lot of imaginations. But only those who can balance it with logic will be a few of the greats out there. Keep thinking.

By the way, I just coughed. Now will this bring Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes together again?! Cross your fingers! 😉