What’s the Buzz? The Butterfly Effect and a mask.

Fri, 07/17/2020 - 11:15am

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DAMARISCOTTA, ME 04543-0034
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About this blog:

  • Photographing President Obama

    What's the Buzz" covers what's happening, what might be happening, and what should be happening in the opinion of the author.

    Eleanor Cade Busby is an unpublished award-winning writer, photographer and blogger & simply loves writing about herself in third person.She published this absolutely all true bio.

    Busby grew up all over New England,a preacher's kid who set out to destroy every single stereotype about a "Minister's Daughter."

    She attended Goddard College, The Rhode Island Conservatory of Music and The School of Life, majoring in everything she could stuff into her head. She once had her own office and a red stapler. Her employees learned quickly never to touch it.

    Much of her very long life has been spent on or back-stage at theaters. She penned a couple of plays, directed many more and acted in scores of productions. She's done it all except hanging lighting. You can't make her climb a ladder.

    She won awards locally & nationally for social services and customer care. Most recently she was awarded the PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award along with 3 million of her closest personal friends for "galvanizing a potent global movement to resist infringements on the rights and dignity of women and many other groups."

    Busby has been a theater, art and dance reviewer and commentator for several publications, including CRACKED magazine.

    Opinionated, obstinate, much-abused, and under-appreciated, she believes that if it isn't funny or relevant, it isn't worth it.

    Eleanor Cade Busby lives in Midcoast Maine with two cats who like to stand on her head at 3 AM demanding a sacrifice, often her sanity.

    Suggestions for topics and comments are always welcome at eleanorcadebusby@hotmail.com

“The Butterfly Effect” is not about an actual butterfly influencing weather across the world. It came about when meteorologist Edward Lorenz, who discovered in the 1960's that tiny, butterfly—scale changes to the starting point of his computer weather models resulted in anything from sunny skies to violent storms—with no way to predict in advance what the outcome might be.

Still the term is a wonderful way to explain the consequences of small actions and how they can impact us all. Our tiny gestures can mean much more to  one another than we know.

We cannot know what our words and actions will do to help. If that person who treats you badly in public is treated kindly by you, perhaps he will not go home and strike his child with left-over anger. Perhaps the child will do or say something that makes him laugh, and he will have a moment of clarity. Perhaps the child will grow up and not strike his own children.

Greeting a stranger with kindness might mean that person, having felt all alone, will carry a feeling of being connected in this time of so much disconnect. Yes, we are “our brother’s keepers”- we do bear responsibility for each interaction.

And in the war of the masks, nothing is more disarming than for anger to be met with concern and kindness. Remember your early years when “Please” and “Thank You” and respect were the most important lessons you learned?

The butterfly effect can be used every moment – being aware of what we do and knowing the potential consequences of those deeds. The smallest step taken can change the course of life completely.

An act of kindness allows for another and another and links all of us in unimaginable ways.

So, simply put, if putting on a mask protects just one person, you could be saving the world entire.

Perhaps that person will find a cure for cancer, lead the world to peace. Maybe they will plant a garden where butterflies visit, and small children chase them in the sunlight in a world that is free of this pandemic. Maybe they will simply decide to wear a mask that one time when they also save another life.

You just never know.

 

(Photos are my own- most taken at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens)