full circle

"I like systems," a friend of mine declared recently.

"Like systems theory?" I asked, a little unsure of what he was getting at.

"Systems theory, taxonomy, systematic theology - anything with an infrastructure," he explained. He's in medical school, and he plans to go into public health - treating individuals, but working toward systemic change.

Since his random comment, I've been seeing systems everywhere. It's like the opposite of X-ray glasses: this view of things adds an extra layer of complexity instead of stripping one away. The superficial makes way for the meta. Suddenly everything affects everything else; every action has a series of consequences that ripple out from the center, gaining momentum.

Barbara Kingsolver has narrated my two latest roadtrips. "Prodigal Summer" is the story of how everything that's alive is interconnected. Killing a predator impacts its prey impacts its predator impacts its prey, like an infinite series of parallel mirrors or the right hand which draws the left hand which draws the right hand. Zoology according to M.C. Escher. In Kingsolver's universe, the whims of individuals prostrate themselves before the enormous, sucking gravity of the system. Animal lovers don't flinch at the bloody slaughter of a few individuals, as long as it balances out in the end. At first you might think the human beings in the story are distinct, utterly alone, each with their own storyline of loneliness and independence. But in the end, it all comes full circle and one can't move a finger without shaping the life of the others.

Everything's interconnected, and the older I get the more I see it. This book made me want to strip off my shoes and socks and walk with naked feet through the grass. And it made me want to go and vote.

I did.