the butterfly effect
Tuesday, August 11, 2020
“It used to be thought that the events that changed the world were things like big bombs, maniac politicians, huge earthquakes, or vast population movements, but it has now been realized that this is a very old-fashioned view held by people totally out of touch with modern thought. The things that change the world, according to Chaos theory, are the tiny things. A butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian jungle, and subsequently a storm ravages half of Europe.”
Today, Joe Biden named Kamala Harris as his running mate.
Recently, Franchino and I have been talking about chaos theory, specifically the butterfly effect. I believe that when Dylan, on August 12, 1965, walked on stage at the Newport Folk Festival carrying an electric guitar, he was the butterfly who flapped its wings changing pop music forever.
In the last six months, something has occurred, something small – somewhere a butterfly has flapped its wings – and the world will be forever changed. I can’t identity the incident; it will probably take some time, some distance from the current chaos to be able to point to the event that was the butterfly effect of 2020.