We have a mouse problem. Many believe that they came here in the shipments of goods destined for the big box retail stores in our small town. They wreak havoc and destroy property. A friend of mine who’s an electrician tells me that 50% of their work is replacing wiring in mobile homes that have been eaten by hungry rodents. Similar stories exist among mechanics who find that they have a predilection for automotive wiring.

These are not the tiny kangaroo mice that are indigenous to our area. These are fluffy little brown mice and their occasional much larger rat relatives. Neither have a way to survive here other than in people’s dwellings.

For some reason, they have decided that my nearly 70-year-old home is a good place for them to hang out. They seem to come in waves: several will appear at a time, followed by periods of time when they are apparently absent.

Logan and I have lived alone together for a number of years now, and I can usually tell when he’s trying to tell me something. Logan is a handsome Siberian husky, and his communications are normally along the line of “Pet me,“ “I want some of whatever it is you’re eating,“ or “Take me for another walk.”

Today he was telling me something different; something exciting had happened near the back of the house. When I went to investigate, there were two small brown mice with their tails caught in the same trap.

Sore tails aside, these two seemed hale and hearty, so I carefully transported them several miles away from town and released them into the wilderness. When I have done this in the past, there was always a brown streak into the underbrush upon the first sight of freedom, as expected.

These two were different. They stopped for a moment and looked at me before casually walking off to the relative shelter of a nearby mesquite bush. Anthropomorphism notwithstanding, some part of me suspects that they understood that if they were going to become lunch, they would have by now.

So I wished them well and got back in my truck. They are either going to live together in fuzzy rodent bliss, or they will soon become food for a hungry bird or reptile, possibly a coyote.

In any case, this small tale (pun intended) of domestic adventure got me thinking about the way in which even our smallest actions feed into a larger system of life, much of it without our awareness.

Chaos and Connectedness

It is known as the “butterfly effect”—a tenet of chaos theory recognizing that even seemingly insignificant events can create massive change in complex systems—that “a butterfly can flap its wings in Brazil and cause a tornado in Texas.”¹

I think of the downstream effects of our actions as ripples: waves of energy that emanate from the epicenter of our original action in all directions.

I recently saw a seemingly random profile on a social media feed. The profile picture of this account referenced a very specific niche, and was unique enough that I said hello. It turns out this man is several years my junior and lives a couple of thousand miles away.

After exchanging pleasantries via text, he wrote, “You don’t remember me, do you? I was one of your students.“ It turns out that 45 years ago, this man had taken some music lessons from me. He even remembered the name of my band, which was popular in the small town in which I lived at the time.

Neither of us was trying to find the other; there were no electronic devices monitoring our every move and conversation to turn it into Internet marketing 45 years ago.

I don’t know what impact my efforts might have had on this man’s life, but it was enough that he remembered our interaction, nearly five decades later.

Earlier this week, as is typical of my daily routine, I was in my favorite local coffee shop, writing. There was a young man sitting in the corner alone with his laptop and video camera. I had seen him here many times; all I knew about him was that he largely kept to himself and drove a vintage Alfa Romeo.

I recognized the video camera he was using; it was considered to be very high-end filmmaking equipment 25 years ago, and is apparently sought after now for the specific retro look it gives to projects. I have one just like it, sitting in its protective case at home, a vestige of the media company that I have operated since the year 2000.

I went to introduce myself and see if I could learn more about his work. He looked up at me with bright blue eyes from under a shock of unruly dark hair and told me his name was Manuel.

With a friendly smile and a pronounced Italian accent, he explained that he was from Venice, but had been drawn—by a feeling—to the Great American Southwest, which he had been traveling for several years now.

We frequent many of the same places in this corner of the continent, and began to share stories. At one point, he told me he’s working on a documentary, a tribute to a young woman he interviewed had taken her own life. It turns out that this woman’s mother had also committed suicide several months previously, and this young woman, her daughter, had found her.

As he related the story to me with obvious sadness, I realized that I know the family he was talking about; as a matter of fact, they just passed me on my early morning walk as I dictate this story.

He said that he loved the camera, but he was worried about its longevity; they no longer service nor stock parts for this once celebrated piece of gear. I asked him if he would like to have another one as back up.

He was shocked and grateful, and told me he didn’t know what to say; I told him that I was happy just to know that this camera I had also loved would continue to be used and create meaningful content.

He texted me later to say that his mother in Italy was relieved and happy to hear that he would be able to continue his work here.

Again, I thought about how a relatively small gesture had made a mom—many  time zones and cultures away—feel a little bit more secure about her son.

Later in my career, I owned and operated a career college in a massive metropolitan area. It makes me wonder—given the impact of a couple of small mice on the ecosystem, the memories of a guitar student from half a century ago, and a mother’s smile on the other side of the world—what ripples have those thousands of graduates created? And the ripples made by the people they have touched?

And so it goes, in exponential progression, for as long as we live.

Not long ago I was in a tiny town, in an isolated part of a Southwestern state buying groceries. I was surprised to hear a man’s voice behind me: “Dr. Welsh?” This man went on to tell me how his time at my college had changed his life, and that of his mother, who was also a student.

We’ve all heard the parables: “Actions speak louder than words.” “Faith without works is dead.”

We know that just thinking about doing good in the world is not enough; we have to reflect it in the way we live our lives. But the effects of our actions carry on in a much wider radius and for a much longer time than we could ever imagine.

So I ask you to consider: what ripples in time and space will your actions create today?


1. Lorenz, E. N. (1972, December 29). Predictability: Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas? Paper presented at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, DC, United States.



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- JWW