One

One: Can the global economy be whipped into a tailspin by one person’s meal? Can a war and by default, a whole nation, be won or lost because one shipbuilder decided to give one plank extra attention in the pitch and tar sealing process? Can global embroiling and ensuing, annihilating nuclear warfare be prevented by the good faith and patience of one man? Could millions of lives be affected by the changed mind of one judge? The answer to all is a resounding ‘yes’, but it might not be immediately obvious. Butterflies flapping their wings in Brazil might affect the vortices of wind patterns in Texas, but I’m fonder of the proverbial characterization that goes something like

‘For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost.

For want of a rider the message was lost.

For want of a message the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.’

That is to say, minor variability in initial conditions and inputs can have massive differentiating effects downstream. One seemingly insignificant detail can be the impetus to send the whole trajectory of a system on an entirely different course. Just drop a thousand rubber ducks into the Colorado River at approximately the same place and go two miles downstream and wait for a while in order to see a practical example of this – ‘practical’ meaning a physical, real-world model, not necessarily a practically easy one! Yes, the real world is vastly more complicated than we invariably and inherently mischaracterize it to be. Even assessing all the known variables does not take into account the unknown ones. But what of one person’s minor decision changing the course of history, and not just serendipitous events occurring to produce an outcome. What of someone in Wuhan, China eating a what likely seemed to them a benign bat nest soup and thus propagating the pandemic coronavirus? And because of its pandemic spread global economies freezing assets left and right, affecting hundreds of billions of dollars in trade, millions of jobs and ending thousands of lives. What of one shipbuilder not slacking on his work in the pitch sealing process and this boat being the boat that carried John Adams to plead for help from the French in the American Revolution, which inevitably changed the course of the war – and the world? What of one Soviet officer named Vasili Arkhipov aboard a nuclear submarine during the Cuban missile crisis, who of the three officers on board, was the one defecting vote to not launch nuclear missiles when benign depth charge warnings were being conducted around them, rather than intentional enemy fire? This assuredly spared the world from descending into nuclear, devastating war. What of one judge voting differently in Obergefell v. Hodges, and the social fabric of a nation not being ripped asunder? All are interesting and harrowing prospects, no doubt. All of these philosophical speculations can be intriguing, but what does the philosophy that stemmed from Athens have to do with Jerusalem? There, where one donkey carried one man into a town, who walked up one hill to die on one tree. Theses are not philosophical musings anymore, but where sweat and blood mingled into one…one beautiful mixture of justice and mercy that had more power than all the world’s nuclear devices. And there is no want in this one.