Heroes Not Zombies

In the early morning at this time of year the grass is full of bejewelled spider webs. This is one of them. You could say there are hundreds like this, which would be true, but it’s equally true that every single one of them is unique. Try as hard as you like you won’t find two which share an identical pattern of water droplets and threads. Not only that, they change moment by moment as the temperature and humidity change and water molecules evaporate into the air. If you come back tomorrow you won’t find the same ones.

This beautiful creative process of interplay between a whole array of diverse elements amazes me…..grass, spiders, water, air, the Sun….and so on.

The basic characteristics of their structure is in fact the same – links and nodes. This network form is surely at least one of the most fundamental structures of reality.

I can look at this image and see morning spider webs in the grass, constellations in the night sky, satellite images of cities at night, neural networks in the brain…..

And as a representative model this same form describes social relationships, communities, road, rail, sea and air routes, cities….

Isn’t that remarkable?

At school in chemistry class we were taught a different model of reality – molecular models made of coloured balls and sticks. To an extent I can see that structure in this one but the key difference I think comes from a radical shift in perspective.

The old perspective is one of separate, fixed, often identical units – building blocks. The new one is of massively interconnected, dynamic, unique instances of natural occurrences.

I love this model. It’s a wholly different lens revealing those three great principles of reality – connectedness, dynamism and uniqueness.

Beautiful