The Butterfly Effect

I am not talking about the movie, The Butterfly Effect, but the theory. The Butterfly Effect is based on chaos theory and I will try to explain it as simple as possible. It is the effect of one object having a profound impact on an unrelated object. According to the wiki page, Lorenz (the theorist) describes the effect as a formation of a hurricane due to a butterfly flapping it's wings weeks before. This is a thoery that is important in time travel and it brings us to the topic of the day.

I just finished reading 11/22/63 by Stephen King. In the book, the main character Jake is guided to a small hole in his universe that takes him back in time to 1958. His friend, who is dying of cancer, wants Jake to go back to 1958 and live there to stop the Kennedy assisination. At first, he is apprehenisve but agrees to do it.  Along the way, he changes small bits of history and discovers that nothing has really changed. He does stop the assisination and when he comes back to the present, the world is very different. So he goes back through the hole and resets time again.

And I draw the conclusion, that things happen for a reason. In the novel, Jake is met with obstacle after obstacle to stop the assassination and he even knows the past does not want to be changed. Many of us wonder, what would our lives be like if I made this choice? In the science fiction show, Fringe, meddling with time is just that. A watcher interferes with someone in an alternate universe thus everything changes for both universes.  Eureka is another, the main group of characters go back to 1948 and don't really seem to change anything but when they come back they are on an alternate time line. It is the Butterfly Effect.

In my own life, I had a choice of three colleges. If I would have the one in Connecticut or the one in Florida, I would have never meant my husband or had my daughter so I am glad I made that choice. And we all have big choices like that but the butterfly effect works on the small things as well. Look at the movie, The Chosen One, where Rob Schneider is chosen to bring snow back to a mountain in South America. How does he does this is  by saving a bird in New York City.

There are signs all around, I really believe this, that show us we are on the right path. Perhaps dreams or deja vu or a combination of all of them. If there is a god or destiny or whatever it is that pulls the puppet strings, there is a reason things happen. I believe you make your own destiny but I don't know because it seems like something is already forged for you. Like the teacher who wants to be this or that but finds themselves teaching, touching a student's life who then changes the world for the good. The Butterfly Effect.

But why, if there is free will and things happen for a reason then is there really free will? Who controls this? Maybe we do create our own destiny. What is about, The Secret, where you ask the universe something and it will give it to you (positive thinking)? Do we as young people form our own destinies as children and the universe ensures that happens. In both Fringe and 11/22/63 there are people who know and understand the time of the universe. In Fringe they are called Watchers in the 11/22/63 they are just known as the "green card man" but their job is pretty much the same keep control of time. What makes those people special, I will never know.

So if things happen for a reason, are we supposed to sit back and do nothing? I think that would be the worst thing. Since forging your own way in the world, shows you where you should be. You need to fall back to rise further right.

May a sunny, warm, summer Sunday be with you.