A butterfly effect is the phenomeon that a small change in initial conditions that leads to a significantly different result than if the initial conditions haven’t been changed. Have you personally witnessed such phenomeon?
Example: Your pet seeks attention and you decided to spend a few seconds to pet your pet before leaving for work/a party/shopping for grocerries/etc. You drive to an intersection and the light turns red just a few seconds before you arrive, the car ahead of you passed the intersection sucessfully. When you eventually arrive at the next intersection, you find the car ahead of you was hit on the side by another car from the intersecting road. The driver in the car ahead of you was instantly killed.
You’ve just been saved by your pet.
My addiction to World of Warcraft and obsession over getting a certain mount may have lead to the death of an elderly man.
Way back in the ancient times, I was super addicted to WoW and really wanted this super rare mount. I would stay up super late trying to farm for it with no luck and eventually started setting an alarm for when it was supposed to spawn and waking up every hour or something all night to log in and try and get it. After a few days of this, I was fried and couldn’t function at all.
At the time I worked at a soft serve ice cream place and had to be there early to open the store which was inside a mall food court. My main opening job was to clean out the soft serve machines and get them ready for the day. Well, these machines are under a fair bit of pressure and your supposed to drain off all the left over soft serve and depressurize the machine before you open it up to clean it.
I didn’t depressurize it.
In my sleep deprived, deep-fried state, I walked through the mall food court filled with the early morning elderly mall walkers making their rounds. Got to work and immediately started unscrewing the face plate of the soft serve machine to start cleaning it. It sounded like a bomb went off. I was covered head to toe, literally every square inch of the front of my body was covered in ice cream mix and when I scraped the ice cream out of my eyes and looked around to survey the damage, I was horrified. There was chocolate ice cream splattered from one corner of the food court to the other, floor to ceiling. Everyone in the food court had at least a little ice cream on them, most more than a little. But then, A man who had to be in his upper 80s collapsed, grasping at his chest. The sound of the explosion and the shock of freezing ice cream sprayed all over him gave him a heart attack.
The paramedics were loading him up on a stretcher when my boss told me to go home and change. To my surprise, I wasn’t fired but when I came back later that morning, no one could give me an update on the man. I never found out if he made it or not, but my gut tells me he probably didn’t. He was a regular mall walker and I would see him quite often before that day, but never did after that.
I never did end up getting that mount. I can’t even remember what it was anymore which makes the whole story even worse imo. I quit WoW shortly after that incident and never really played another MMO after. I think about that man anytime I get the urge to stay up late and grind another game or finish another episode or whatever it is.
I’m sorry mall walker man.
I’m not saying that you didn’t mess up, but he was in his 80s. Try not to beat yourself up too much. An outlook I’ve had after a few close deaths is to live a better healthier life for those not here. Mall walker man can be you driving force to help better the world one mall walker at a time.
I was into WOW for a long time and I know the addiction tendencies that creep up playing that game. These are companies (gaming and social media) that spend countless time, money, and energy to try to get as many people addicted to their services as possible. The average teenager trying to kill time between classes or jobs don’t really stand a chance.
Ding! Grats!
Yikes. I’m sorry that happened to you. Lesson learned though. Being sleepy can cause so many problems.
Was it the time-lost proto drake?
Also, damn.
That was exactly what it was. I had to look it up but as soon as i opened that wiki page, this surge of anxiety and ptsd washed over me. That was it for sure.
It sounds like talking to a therapist about this would help you out. I hope you find closure.