The Butterfly Effect

COVID - 19

In the last months or so we’ve been increasingly bombarded by news, fake or otherwise as well as videos, posts, pictures, jokes, songs, support groups, podcasts and everything else related to COVID-19. 

Face masks, disposable gloves, Hazmat Suites became the new in-fashion while hand gels and toilet paper are worth their weight in gold.

But here’s something I haven’t heard much and it’s partially what lies at the heart of the problem - CHOICE! More precisely our ability to choose. 

Sidetracking a bit... In the early 50’s tobacco companies already knew the dangers associated with smoking and yet smoking was positively advertised and in some cases recommended by doctors as part of a healthy successful lifestyle. 

Fast forward 40 years and we were at the beginning of a huge campaign to change the relationship 'The World' had with cigarettes - through education and information the stuff became uncool, no longer a desirable commodity; some of the ideas I grew up with in the ’80s as the ‘norm’ - smoking on airplanes, public transport, restaurants, GP waiting rooms, hospitals; Not to mention lighting up a cigarette after sex was portrayed as pretty much part of sex - are now unthinkable behaviours and ideals.

Surely this stuff should have been extinct by now; not through force but by choice. However fast forward another 30 years from my childhood and with all the information and knowledge that’s available to us about the damage and risks of smoking, it is estimated that over 1 billion people are smokers, around 20% of the population. Each and every one of those individuals is making a choice, every time they light up a cigarette they are choosing to do so - consciously or otherwise it is still a choice!

But since we are talking about choice I’d be hypocritical on my part if I didn’t honour the fact that we do have the right to choose even if when doing so we potentially harm ourselves and others.

Point being once again our planet is ‘screaming’ at us and while it is the first time the population of this planet is dealing with something at this magnitude, it is not the first time it has happened, the only difference is the speed of communication and movement of human beings across the globe. 

"It is not the first time this happens and if we don`t change our choices it won`t be the last"

- KalyM

We have been living with daily warning signs for quite some time now. What will it take for us to choose differently?

But here’s the thing about choices, they are hard, sometimes super fucking hard! They require continuous information, desire, commitment, and action. 

... And the only reason the world has radically changed in the last few months is that we were forced to, not because we wanted to, if it was up to us we’d be going about our daily lives just the way it has always been, isolated in our individualistic shells. As they say in English 'Mind your own business' which is an interesting reflection of what we have become.

If there’s one thing we are all facing whether we have understood it or not is that we are all part of the same - my thoughts, words, and actions will have an impact on you even if we have never met, even if we never meet. My very existence on this planet has an impact and influence on your life - The Butterfly Effect.

'In chaos theory, the Butterfly Effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.' 

If we are a little smarter we will understand this virus is an opportunity for all of us to become the end of what it has been and the beginning of what needs to be but that requires global education, information, desire, and most importantly CHOICE!

Humanity talks about how ‘We are destroying the planet’, that’s not quite true; we are gradually damaging the planet indeed but we are destroying OURSELVES - the planet will still be here long after we’re gone. Earth will adapt, survive and thrive once again - just as it did before we ever existed. 

Letting go of our egotistical human arrogance and nativity is the first hard choice we need to make. It takes more than a girl crying her eyes out to change the world.

Now, I’m not suggesting under any circumstances that we give up all we have achieved, our dreams, our commodity, our spirit of discovery, our technology, and overall our somewhat ‘easy’ lives. It’s the very opposite I believe we need to push forward and choose wisely the companies, products, food, behavior, education and ultimately the choices we make every day that could represent our future. We need to choose better how we consume, from whom and why. 

In my opinion, the biggest danger we face is that soon enough we’ll go back to being and doing exactly what we did before 'Minding our own business' and that would be a waste of an opportunity and a tragedy to us all and our future generations.

COVID-19 is our butterfly and we are witnessing the silent, invisible flutter of its wings upon all of us. Let’s change this game, let’s choose better.

  

With 'ISOLATED' Pleasure

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