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This Plus This Equals That


Magma, Gojira's latest album has been on heavy rotation for me lately. It's a great album. You should listen to it, regardless of what sort of music you typically enjoy. On my way to work this morning, the line, "When you change yourself, you change the world" from the song Silvera dug itself into my brain. That idea wouldn't let go.

I thought about it all day. About change. How changing yourself and the betterment of the self is so glorified these days. I'm certainly not saying you should be stagnant. Good grief. No. Consider the Butterfly Effect, though. Or Newton's Third Law. Every action, every change, "good" or "bad" has a consequence also "good" or "bad." Change for change's sake seems to be a Thing right now, (Innovate! Iterate!) but I think it gets lost that we don't exist independently of each other. Not that you can worry constantly about the impact of your change on others, but it deserves your consideration.

Which brings us to the book I just finished, Redshirts by John Scalzi. I can't tell you much about the book because it would ruin everything, but I can tell you that the idea of actions having consequences is central to the narrative*, and the idea of your actions and their influence on others paralyzing what you do and how you live comes up for a character. I can also tell you that this book has one of the most beautiful endings I've ever read in a book and it makes me smile and happy-ugly cry to even think about it.

Obviously, this album and book will make your life better and make people - okay, me - like you better. But it's more than that. I hope that in the midst of everything that's changing for everyone right now we don't lose sight of reflection. I don't suggest we spend so much time looking back that we forget to move forward - I'm a great white** that way - but let me put forth that deliberate something is better than haphazard anything and that anytime you change yourself, you change the world - for better or worse.

--

* WINK!
** I was going to say something about sharks keep swimming, but that's a band, and then I was going to capitalize Great White, so that was a band joke too, but then I decided not to do either because that's an awful lot of shark-science-music-nerd jokes and I'm not sure this should be that niche of a blog.

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