The butterfly effect is an interesting phenomenon. A small change to the input of a complex system can have dramatic changes to the state of that system at a later point. The concept is often explored in relation to the complex systems that make up weather. Similarly, a tiny spark can ignite an inferno. Human lives, too, are complex systems.
I often look back at life and think of the many things I've done wrong. Mistakes I've made, insults I've said, hurts I've performed. I wonder, what effects have those had? Echoing down time, changing the dynamic systems that are other people's lives.
Had I caused a bad day? Had I caused a suicide, a murder, some other horror? Could you trace some tragedy back to a slur I uttered? Was youth an excuse, immaturity rendering me less culpable for the chain of reactions that followed some bad thing I'd done or said?
The enormity of it is overwhelming at times. Thinking about how each wrong I've done could still be pin-balling around, altering lives. A lost temper in my youth transmuting to an act of road rage by some stranger years down the line.
When I think of this I can't help but think of the religious idea of sin. What are the wages of the sin I've wrought? Could I be infinitely guilty from the wrongs I've done? Is my sin infinite?