Maladaptive daydreaming? Multiple universes? Deja vu? Two strings? The Mandela Effect? Chaos theory? The Big Bang? The law of attraction? TIME TRAVEL?!
All of these theories are terrifying and keep becoming more real every day. Crazy right?
But what do each of these theories mean and what do they all have in common? They question the universe!
If you really think about it, we’re just sitting on a tiny floating rock that’s moving through space. But our tiny rock is only like a grain of sand floating through a massive universe.
The theory that I think is the most plausible, and that follows the same concept and idea of all the theories that I’ve listed above. is the butterfly effect.
What is the butterfly effect? It’s the idea that a small thing that happens in one place can lead to a greater complex thing to occur somewhere else.
But how does that work? Isn’t that just cause and effect? Yes, but the butterfly effect is much more complex than that.
To give an example, pretend a butterfly flaps its wings, and that flap causes a gust of wind that blows a leaf to flow into the air. That leaf lands in a person’s face, and they drop their phone. That person then ends up missing an important phone call. But maybe it turns out this person is a US senator, and they just missed an important vote on the Senate floor. And because they missed that vote, it causes them to lose a future election. And because they aren’t in office later, the US Senate declares war against another country.
All because a butterfly flapped its wings.
This complex system happens a lot more than you think, like how the terrorist attacks on 9/11 indirectly caused the downfall of Ellen Degeneres. In my opinion, this chain of events theory is the craziest.
Bear with me:
As the story goes, a musician named Gerard Way witnessed the attacks on September 11, 2001, and this experience influenced to form the band, My Chemical Romance. Eventually, My Chemical Romance blew up throughout the 2000’s, and a writer named Stephanie Meyer fell in love with the band. This inspired Meyer to create the popular book series, Twilight, which became extremely popular and had so many spin offs and fanfictions written in its honor.
One of those fanfictions happened to be the novel Fifty Shades of Grey. This novel was adapted into a movie, starring Dakota Johnson, who later appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
In an infamous clip that went viral, DeGeneres asked Johnson why she wasn’t invited to her birthday party, when in fact she had been. This interview caused some people to realize that perhaps DeGeneres is not in fact the nicest person, and eventually several people that worked on her show revealed that she was rude and ill-mannered on set.
Thus, 9/11 ruined the career of Ellen DeGeneres.
Ladies and gentlemen, what you have just read is my favorite example of the butterfly effect! It’s insane how one event can equal millions of different effects.
And what’s crazier is that there are so many more examples of the butterfly effect that take place in our everyday lives. It’s almost as if we’re in a simulation, and our life has been planned out for us.
Our universe is a constant guessing game, because we never know what might be happening next, or what the next cause and effect may be. It’s the kind of thought that can keep you up at night. But that’s what our universe is: a bundle of questions with a lack of answers. It is all super confusing and frightening, but it’s also incredible and fascinating.
Beyond the butterfly effect, there are several more theories about cause and effect. Our universe is the biggest mystery out there, and exploring and researching it is astonishing. It seems that sometimes the more you know, the less you understand.
And sometimes butterflies are to blame.
