The Butterfly Effect

In my half-century long life, I feel like the world has become a much scarier place to live than how I used to perceive it as a child.

May be, when I was growing up, it was just fortunate that there was a cold war instead of a  bloody one!

May be, human hunger for greed, power and wealth has always been like this – exactly as it is now. It is just that only in the past few decades, world has become really small and information flows in a lightning speed to everyone’s hand. 

My current worries stemmed from a small news article that stoked the fear of us sleepwalking into another world war.

After going through the news article, I came to learn the rules of conscription in some of the developed countries.

Instead of specialist armies headed by the war-heroes, as was the norm in the middle ages, now some of the countries make its citizens war-ready by military training and then up to a certain age, can call onto them to serve the country when a real war knocks on its door.

I wonder if the citizens of those countries, whose lives are at stake, has a voice to say, “Yes or No”, when their lives are called for being sacrificed as the pawns at the altar of the so-called patriotism.

When did we burn the ashes of democracy and diplomacy? I wonder if these concepts were ever truly lived by people in many countries! Or, did we just suffer from some illusion of those during the recent peace-times!

Humans have 93% common in their genome with blood thirsty rhesus monkeys. May be we can blame those genes that we share with them for this human nature – getting itself into war with everything that does not suit its current purpose or goal.

One of the last century’s smartest mind, Albert Einstein discovered how mass can be converted into energy. Now, lo and behold – we have a number of countries threatening each other with nuclear warheads!

I recall somewhere it was said that human extinction will bring peace to this planet in the most fastest way – save the flora and fauna of mother earth that we are bringing to destruction in this anthropocene epoch. Is that the end-game we are unconsciously sleep-walking into? I hope not!

I really pray that each of us becomes more conscious outside our little domains and care about the world beyond our day-to-day lives, care a bit more about our rights and decisions; be bold enough to exercise those rights when the time comes. Remember, not saying “no” to something wrong makes us an accomplice in the wrong-doing. 

In today’s connected world, some pay the price of freedom with blood and others pay with money. Each one of us gets affected by things that happen even thousands of kilometers away. We are all connected and affected by every choice each one of us makes – one way or other in a cumulative fashion. This is captured in the famous concept of butterfly effect. Also, watch this movie to see it in action – “The beating of the butterfly’s wings”.

Let Peace be ours to behold.