Saturday Serendipity
Quote, Thoughts, Interesting find.
Hi.
Reading time: About 5 minutes
Quote
“When someone seeks," said Siddhartha, "then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.”
― Herman Hesse, Siddhartha
Thoughts
I am reading a book named Fluke by Brian Klaas. There’s an interesting story as to how the author is born. There was a man named Paul and he was married to a woman named Clara Jansen. On June 15 1905, Clara Jansen killed her own children(4 of them) and then killed herself. Paul came back home and found his entire family dead in his house tucked in blankets. The Paul who had come home to his families death was Brian Klaas’ great grandfather. This led him to a thought which showed how crazy life is. If Clara had not killed her children and herself then Brian would not exist right now. His great grandfather would never have to restart his family and he would never be born. The death of others caused him to be alive today.
“We owe our existences to kindness and cruelty, good and evil, love and hate. It can’t be otherwise because if it were, we would not be us.” Brian Klaas.
Richard Dawkins wrote,
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones.… Most people are never going to because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia.”
Here’s another interesting thought.
When we see movies about all these people travelling back to the past you can see how they ensure that they don’t change even the smallest detail as one small change could entirely make a different future. For instance imagine what if Clara would have dealt with her issues without killing anyone I would never have read the book because Brian Klaas would not be in existence. We very often think about how the past could have changed the present. What we don’t think about is the fact that the present is changing the future. Even the small things like waking up late one day or not going to class has a huge impact on not only your life but someone else’s life as well.
The world is not as simple as one cause and effect. Whenever we try to explain the world we ignore the flukes. We find it meaningless. But the reality is small things end up causing big changes. As you can see the endless possibilities with birth we simply know that our existence is bewilderingly fragile.
Humans want simplicity when there is a complex system. We want a clear cut answer to the complexities of the world. We think of cause and effect in a straightforward pattern. We know Smoking causes cancer. Running makes you healthier. But things like you being born or the Hiroshima Nagasaki bombing cannot be explained by one simple cause. One small change like one person going to vacation on Kyoto, Einstein being born instead of someone else, the rise of emperor Hirohito, etc. could have changed everything. All these small and insignificant things in some manner affected the bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“the near misses and near hits that are unknown to us because we have never seen and will never see, our alternate possible lives. We can’t know what matters most because we can’t see how it might have been.” - Brian Klaas
And I find the opposite true as well. Complexity is what we want when simplicity can answer it. Think about making money or trying to become fit. Here’s what most of us do. We ask these people what is their magic formula. We think the people who have succeeded have done something complex and kept it a secret. We want to know the secret of their success. Here’s what happens though. Most successful people just do the simple things for a long period. It is important to know though simple does not mean easy. Simplicity is hard.
“I began to wonder whether the history of humanity is just an endless, but futile, struggle to impose order, certainty, and rationality onto a world defined by disorder, chance and chaos. But I also began to flirt with an alluring thought: that we could find new meaning in that chaos, learning to celebrate a messy, uncertain reality, by accepting that we, and everything around us are all just flukes, spit out by a universe that can’t be tamed.” - Brian Klaas
It’s a simple thought about a complex world. We just have to accept the uncertainty and learn to live in this world where we cannot predict anything with certainty. Small things can start chain reactions which endure an impact for many decades to come. That’s the nature of things. ‘One butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in Texas.’ (Lorenz).
To think that we are living in a world which is predictable and stable we are doing nothing but comforting ourselves with lies. In times like these it makes sense to accept the reality and adapt with it.
In this world nothing is static. The world is ever changing and every single thing that happens has an effect which lasts very long. Decisions that have been made by the people who are long dead also matter a lot. You would not be reading this post if I had not read the book and I would not have read the book if a woman in Wisconsin had not killed her family.
I highly suggest you read the book. I am still only 40 pages in but I have already loved the book. I had written about chaos theory a while back. This book goes into more depth.
Interesting find
That’s it. Enjoy your weekend.
Thank you,
Samvit.