I am, at heart, a very optimistic person provided I have gotten enough sleep. Considering my unusual familiarity with the awful state of the world, my firm belief that solutions to many problems lie in what are currently some of the most obscure and marginalized belief systems on the planet, and my own long personal history of failure to realize or see sustained any positive trend in the current affairs of the world both locally and globally, my closest amigos often wonder what is at the root of my cheerfulness, to what pandora’s box do I regularly return for hope.

By way of explanation, consider the quote from Melville above. Whether we perceive ourselves as living for ourselves alone or not, whether we are able to sense the "thousand fibers" connecting us to our fellows, to perhaps every particle in the universe, those connections are there. What we do and how we do it will probably have effects, forever and a day, to the end of time, and eventually in every corner of the cosmos. The effect of our actions can be profound, can over time be magnified, and can have great consequences. It would be impossible to predict just what results will be born from my or anyone’s actions, but we can assume, as an act of faith perhaps, that good will tend to breed further good, and bad will have the opposite effect. What is good and what is bad I leave entirely up to you.

Melville has not been the only person to ever express the feeling that all is intertwined in some way that is not readily obvious. The same sentiments have been expressed by others working in the realm of literature, and this is a common theme expressed by some of the more religious among us, most notably among those who have described direct mystical vision. Read the works of Whitman. Consider the inspired origins of Buddism, Islam, or Christainity, and the thoughts of some saints. However transient the vision might have been, or muddled it became in the attempt to share the vision with others, it is a persistent theme in human history.

The internet, with its intricate webwork, offers an interesting microcosmic model of the thousand, should we say trillion, fibers connecting us to which Melville alludes. If you ever wonder of what consequences so small a node as yourself could have on the vast web of life, consider the Butterfly effect and take heart.

The Butterfly effect refers to the mathematical discovery back in 1963 by a meteorologist named Edward Lorenz who found that over time minute changes in a complex system like planetary weather lead to large-scale consequences. To describe the effect an analogy was made to the possiblity of a butterfly&39;s wing flapping in central Asia eventually causing a hurricane halfway around the world. It must be true. It’s math, right?

It seems logical to assume that what is true for the complexity of weather systems is equally true for the complex, chaotic social systems we find ourselves immersed in. So flap your wings, and to the degree that you can do so purposefully in an attempt to further, at the very least, peace, love and understanding, flap hard. Someone somewhere down the line may enjoy the refreshing breeze.

John Korber, December, 1998