Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation). A month ago, I shared an excerpt titled – ‘Why Everything We Do Matters’ from a book titled ‘Fluke’ – Chance, Chaos and Why Everything We Do Matters by Brian Klaas. In this episode we shared a real tale that was reported in news in Greece in the summer of 2022, where a tourist named Ivan who was declared lost at sea, presumed dead got saved by a ball that was accidentally kicked into the sea by two boys playing with it some eighty miles away. Now, SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation) to the ones paying heed, is where we try to draw your attention to things that matter and the importance of your attention, because, ‘Our life’s experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to’.
Attention: is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. Once our attention is drawn to the mechanism of why and what we give attention to, it is as if a veil has been stripped off and we become freer in our action and choices. And that is our endavour.
This week I bring to your attention an excerpt titled – ‘Intertwined World’ from a book titled ‘Fluke’ – Chance, Chaos and Why Everything We Do Matters by Brian Klaas.
In his book Brian points that Contrary to our instinctive beliefs, cause and effect are never simple and easy to understand: any specific outcome is dependent not only on what appear to be the major events leading up to it, but also on an array of seemingly insignificant, arbitrary, easily overlooked factors, “flukes”—some under our control, but countless others not.
Intertwined World
Ours is an intertwined world. Once you accept that entangled existence, it becomes clear that chance, chaos, and arbitrary accidents play an outsize role in why things happen. In an intertwined world, flukes matter. There can be no true split between “the signal” and “the noise.” There is no noise. The noise of one person’s life is the signal for another, even when we can’t detect it.
Nobody wants to be told they’re not in control, or that a stranger’s decision half a world away, or a long-forgotten decision decades in the past, could kill us or cause our economy to collapse into a crippling recession. Like it or not, that’s how the world works. Even decisions by those who are long dead continue to matter.
That reality, for better and for worse, isn’t terrifying, but wondrous, giving every moment of life potentially hidden meaning. It flips the individualist worldview on its head. Rather than being in control of our individual destinies when we make big decisions, even our smallest decisions matter, forever altering the world.
Excerpt from ‘Fluke’ – Chance, Chaos and Why Everything We Do Matters by Brian Klaas.
I am sure that you will enjoy reading this book, to read book report you can click on the following link and subsequently buy your copy too:
https://humanjourney.us/mind/fluke-brian-klaas-summary
Enjoy reading it with your family, friends and near and dear one’s.
Namaste!
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