Are Butterflies, Bin Laden and Dead Plants Relevant To You?

Have you ever played that game in a bar where you list the people you would most like to have at a dinner party, the sort of thing when you sit Nelson Mandela next to Adolf Hitler, George Bush with Bin Laden, that sort of thing? Lying in bed strangely enjoying one of the few bouts of insomnia which can be incredibly creative, I got to thinking about the late author of The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy Douglas Adams to have a chat about a reoccurring theme in his books – the interconnectedness of all things.

The Internet was in nappies when Adams thought up the idea but with this World Wide Web thing we are connecting with each other in ways we couldn’t have believed possible. I worked on a European Commission project back in 1995 using the emerging net technologies and the progress since then has been staggering. Also, there are other concepts out there about how something happening in one place affects the lives of people in another.

You may have heard of the Chaos Theory where apparently a butterfly taking off in the Amazonian rain forest can be responsible for a typhoon off somewhere like Japan! Now I don’t know about you but if I were Japanese and of a highly strung disposition I’d be heading to Peru with containers of insecticide, but I digress!

Plant Killer Fingered By Survivor.

Let me throw another idea into the pot. In his book The Nature of Things, Lyall Watson tells the story of an experiment where there are two plants in a room and five volunteers have to walk into the room, hang about for a while and then leave. The twist is that one of the volunteers has to kill one of the plants by ripping off leaves, tearing off whatever flowers there might be, biting it or whatever it takes to kill a plant.

The scientists running the experiment then connect the surviving plant to a bit of kit that measures electrical impulses and ask the volunteers to come back into the room. When the “killer” walks in the room the kit goes haywire, suggesting that the plant somehow recognizes the individual who killed his neighbor. The interesting thing was that one of the other volunteers that did not lay his hands on the deceased plant also generated a response from the survivor. On quizzing this volunteer it emerged that he had been mowing his lawn earlier that day!

Now I hear you say, what is the old fart rambling on about and how is this relevant to me?

Is Your Lifestyle Plan Alienating People?

Lifestyle design, it seems to me, is very focused; it requires willpower, intent, determination. This is all very laudable but you need to bear in mind the interconnectedness of all things. Every action has a reaction and there could be the danger that while single-mindedly pursuing your goal your actions, you might be having an adverse or negative reaction on things in your immediate vicinity and that starts to radiate outwards.

I’m not going to suggest that you consciously examine every decision, movement or idea as you would go insane. Nor am I insinuating that by breaking wind you’ll be responsible for heavy rains, landslides and deaths in Sri Lanka, but I am suggesting that you take time out to smell the flowers, dangle your feet in a stream, to step back and look at what you’re doing and examine what effect it’s having on those closest to you.

Are you alienating a partner or close friend? Do your parents think you’ve been brainwashed by some weird cult? Where does intent become obsessiveness? Pour a glass of wine, wander into your garden and lay on your back and look at the clouds and re-examine your path.

Anyway, I have to go because I have spent too much time on this and my blog and my wife wants to go shopping and I can feel the frustration radiating up the stairs and there will be more than a dead plant around here if I don’t get a move on

Related posts:

1. Lifestyle Design Is NOT Dead!
2. Ancient Teachings That Are Relevant Today.
3. I Think Young Therefore I Am Young – I Think.
4. 7 Personal Characteristics For Effective Lifestyle Design.
5. Why Meditation Is The Rocket Fuel For Lifestyle Design And Personal Development.