This was written December 21th, 2025
On Life’s Chaos
Chaos, quite a fascinating theory. Basically, it reflects complex systems where vary small changes in the initial conditions can lead to significant differences in the long-run. The classic simplification of this phenomenon is the Butterfly Effect, which I need not explain.
Accordingly, our lives out to be a series of decisions with cascading effects, causing further and further discrepancies with each step. At least, if we assume that compounding changes are additive instead of destructive.
Regardless, despite this, most people when thinking back on choices they’ve made and how their lives could be different now, tend to picture a very similar life, albeit with the outcome of that one decision changed.
For example, someone who wishes they’d learned a language during their youth would imagine that their current life would now be basically the same, except that they’d now be more fluent in said tongue.
Yet, that omits the obvious changes this could have lead to:
- What about the new people met through these extra classes?
- What about the new opportunity that might have arisen?
- What about other completely different interests that could have sprouted?
- And what about what was done with the time not spent acquiring this language?
Obviously, many, many elements would be changed, most of which fairly unpredictable. Yet, it is my opinion that there are different degrees to the potential chaos of life.
While it is clear that the butterfly effect could lead to a drastically different world, probabilistically speaking, I expect many things would remain unchanged. Accordingly, I expect that there are different vectors to consider when it comes to how chaotic a life could truly have been:
- Influence
- Big Sweeping Changes
- Providence
The first one is fairly straightforward to understand and explain. Let us, for example, imagine a world leader. Any of their geopolitical decisions could lead to vastly different worlds, and in turn, their own lives would be vastly different as a consequence.
And Influence can have a second or third degree to. Someone who interacts daily with an influential person has better odds to cause an impact on said-person, in turn causing drastic shifts.
Ok, now that we’ve dealt with Influence, how about the other axes, starting with Big Sweeping Changes (And clearly, a better name is required). What do I mean by that? Well, let us take my life as an example. Well, I left home to go to a college in a completely different city. I’ve also changed my program. I’ve also moved to live in the US for some startups. And then I moved to Taiwan.
Well…changing any of those factors would completely restructure my life, including the sort of social circles I have, where I live, what I do for a living. And many of those choices were impacted by the prior ones.
My choice of destination in the US: Partially because of someone I knew in University from that city.
My choice of moving to Asia: Because of the various friends I’ve made in University that introduced me to Asia and “Chinese culture”.
Change anything upstream, and the downstream is likely to be mostly unrecognizable. Meanwhile, for people living in the same small town for their entire life, such drastic changes are much less likely to occur. For example: their social circles are likely to not be influenced much by big decisions.
Finally, Providence, how does that have an impact on the chaos of life? Well, in modern life, especially after the rise of the internet, a lot of things are left to chance.
What job you get? Maybe it’s based on a specific posting found online, which only happened because of when and where you searched.
The friends you have? Maybe you’ve met them through online apps. Or maybe even just a class you had in common, where it was pure chance that you both took it at the same time, in the same place, and landed on the same teacher. Your partner? Quite likely found on a dating app.
I think such examples should be sufficient to understand the role this might have on the chaos of life.
And obviously, such things can compound. Having a different life partner can completely re-route how you would live you life. Landing on a different job would mean a completely different group of people you’d interact with, and might lead you to move to a completely different place. And who knows, you might end up meeting someone influential.
All to say, while each life can be rather chaotic, and we tend to underplay how much a change in a single decision could have rerouted our lives, it also seems like not every life is equally chaotic. The way you lead your own life could strongly impact how chaotic it is.
Is any of this important, or even meaningful? No, not exactly. However, I think it’s still worth appreciating how different one’s life could be, and that even if you regret some decisions from a by-gone era…it might be worthwhile to remember that some of the good things in your current life might be owned to those mistakes.
Similarly, while I do believe that not every life is equally chaotic, and that mine is particularly so (Along the latter two axes…I clearly am not that influential), I don’t believe there’s a right or wrong answer. They each have their pros and cons. A chaotic life is, by definition, wildly unpredictable. This means much less stability, and while it might seem more exciting, it clearly also comes at extra risks.
Closing thoughts? Yeah, I think it could be worth thinking back over your life and seeing what decisions you’ve made that had the highest impact on your life, and how chaotic you’d evaluate your life to be. And then, maybe consider whether you’re happy with the conclusion you come to, and if not, what you could do about it.
Best to you all, and stay curious!