Everything that happens in our daily life, all the decisions that we constantly make, however small, have a ripple effect and implications that we just can't foresee, at least not in the long term. It's what they call the butterfly effect.
That name was coined by American mathematician Edward Lorenz in the 1960s to illustrate chaos theory, but he may (or may not) have come up with it from a short story by science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury called A sound of Thunder, first published in 1952.
The story is set in the future, where time travel is a reality. A group of people pays a time travel company to take them back 66 million years to the late Cretaceous period, to look at dinosaurs. But before they depart, the company guide warns the travellers that, when they get there, they must not impact the environment in any way, because any alteration to the past, however small, would set in motion a chain of events that could snowball into significant changes in history.
However, once in the Cretaceous, one the travellers inadvertently steps on a butterfly and, upon returning to the present, they notice some significant changes to their world. Among others, the English language is spoken slightly differently, and a fascist president is in the White House. (Is that why we had Trump? Did someone go back in time and fuck it up?)
The textbook definition of chaos theory is rather complex (and goes completely over my head), but it basically means that in a complex system with an infinite number of variables, long-term predictions are simply impossible. Which is why, even with the most powerful and sophisticated computer, we can't predict things like the economy or the weather if we go far enough into the future.
Once we recognize that any event can trigger all sorts of long-term effects, the logical consequence is that the very idea of good or bad luck loses all significance. A seemingly lucky occurrence, like finding a £50 note on the street, could have catastrophic consequences and, vice-versa, a seemingly unlucky occurrence, like hurting our back, could end up being the best thing that ever happened to us. You just never know.
All of that is very well illustrated in an old morality tale from China, which is worth knowing if you've never heard of it. It's the story of The Old Farmer and the Horse:
There was an old farmer who had a horse. One day the horse runs away. When the farmer's son tells his father of the bad news, the old farmer says to him: "How do you know that's a bad thing?" And in fact, a few days later, the horse comes back with a wild mare. When the farmer's son tells his father of the good news, the old farmer says to him: "How do you know that's a good thing?" And in fact, a few days later, while riding the mare, the son falls and breaks his legs. When he complains to his father about his bad luck, the old farmer says to him: "How do you know that's a bad thing?" And in fact, a few days later, soldiers arrive in the village to recruit all the young men to go fight in an upcoming war. But since the farmer's son has a broken leg, he's left behind. When the son rejoices with his father about his good luck, the old farmer says to him: "How do you know that's a good thing?"
That story could go on ad infinitum, and while yes, that old man is starting to get on my nerves a little bit (you sort of want to shove his head up the horse's ass and say "How do you know that's a bad thing?"), he does a point. However, it seems to me that his attitude is a bit of a double-edged sword.
While that story can inspire us to look at misfortune with a degree of optimism, isn't the flip-side of it that we should greet any propitious event with detachment and perhaps a slight sense of worry? But I like getting excited about the little things! When someone at work offers me a doughnut, am I supposed to wonder if, in five years time, it will cause me to have a car accident? That's no way to live.
A possible solution would be to cheat. We could learn from religious people and hold, at the same time, two contradictory and mutually-exclusive sets of attitudes. Religious people do that all the time. We've all seen it.
If we assume, for a second, that there's a god, then god either intervenes in our lives or doesn't. But how do religious people react to everyday events? When something good happens, praise the Lord! When something bad happens, oh well, shit happens, what're you gonna do?
By the same token, we could stay cool in the face of adversity, waiting to see how it all pans out, while getting excited when confronted with (what seems to be) something positive. But can we do that? Doesn't illogicality always come to back to bite you in the ass, eventually? It probably does.
But at the end of the day, whether you believe in god or not, we're all in the same predicament: we all live in a random, chaotic, senseless world where a lot of the stuff that happens to us is beyond our control. That's just the way it is. And I suppose we all deal with it in our own way. So when we meet someone that says to us "I believe in god", rather than asking "Why?", perhaps the most sensible response should be "Whatever works for you, buddy."
