Sparkle

Is everything interconnected?  I didn’t think so until one day I remarked on the sparkles adorning Kat’s face.  I thought they were there on purpose. 

“Oh those?  They’re because of the chipmunk in our house.”

“Huh?”

“Well, you see, our cat brought a chipmunk inside.  Didn’t kill it – our cat seems to have some sort of ‘catch & release’ policy toward rodents.”

“I’m not making the connection with the sparkles.”

“Bear with me.  The chipmunk took up residence in the living room curtains, only to jump out and scare the daylights out of us at random intervals.”

“And therefore…?”

“Well, we finally did get the chipmunk out of the house.  And then I insisted on washing the curtains.”

“Uh huh…”

“And the curtain material left a bunch of sparkly specs all over the washing machine.”

“Aha.  It’s becoming clearer.”

“And our clothes are picking up the sparkles when I do the laundry.  And they stick to my face when I get dressed.” 

A lot has been made of the butterfly effect.*  It appears chipmunks deserve equal time, philosophically speaking.

May your day sparkle.

*Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system.  The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately cause a tornado to appear.