The Butterfly Effect

The Butterfly Effect: Flutters of Wisdom and Kindness accentuates the compelling need for random acts of kindness. Each reader of this book can remember someone from his or her past who has made an indelible influence on his or her life. A random act of kindness can resonate with goodness for each person who participates in favor. Unfortunately, other types of acts can have an opposite effect. This work contains hundreds of "flutters" of wisdom and kindness from an eclectic composition of sources from Aristotle to Emile Zola, from Plato to Rudyard Kipling, from Booker T. Washington to Leo Tolstoy, Karl Marx to Janis Joplin. This work attempts to synthesize different thought and observations from people, past and present, from different cultures of east and west that will indicate that we all share an impetus to a common goal . . . if we help each other. Though this may be deemed a work of scholarship, it is presented in non-scholarship terms. Though the subject matters (philosophy, sex, religion, and politics) are matters of gravitas, the answers can be quite simple, if we permit them to be. This is not a "how to" book. Each person has the sovereign right to determine his or her destiny. Nevertheless, interesting and controversial points are covered so that each person may make a more informed choice about how to determine well-being. If the reader pledges to help another, thousands of others will be pledging to help the reader.

A Zen Buddhist koan asks, "How does the drop of water know it is part of a wave?" A drop always has a ripple. A flutter of kindness or wisdom can shake the world.

-- John W. Casperson