We Are Connected Through Choice — Lessons from a Video Game
Recently, I finished playing Hideo Kojima’s video game, Death Stranding. I was surprised by the amount of philosophical concepts in game, though one notably stuck out to me—choices and how they affect us and those around us. When I finished the game, I was so blown away that I had to sit down and put my thoughts together. The following is inspired by and a part of what I took away from Death Stranding.
Effects of Butterflies
We believe that we go through life and this world alone, that there are things that don’t even matter in our lifetime. Others might say differently. Others will say that we are all connected, joined by an invisible tether. Does this “connection” define who we are as a species? As people? I don’t know the answer to this question, but what I do know that there is some sort of connection that we have to each other, felt through the ripples of time and space. Maybe one could call this the Butterfly Effect—that effect of small changes having profound, large effects on everyone and everything.
Is this Butterfly Effect that semblance of a tether that binds us all together; the idea that one person can unknowingly affect the course of history for years to come? Are we, the people of the present, bound and held fast by the decisions and choices we make? I reason this to be case, and here’s why. When the soldier in World War I (WWI) had the chance to shoot Adolf Hitler but didn’t, the soldier presumably didn’t suffer the effects of his choice. It was his children and their generation that was dealt the wrath of Hilter’s fascism, his need for lebensraum, and the devastating atrocities the followed.
Ropes, Choices, and Knots
One can imagine a rope with many knots. Each new knot is made as a result of a string flowing from the previous knot. This notion of knotting can go on until there is no more rope left. It can be said that each knot is a choice, and the string that flows into each new knot is the is the effects spawned from the previous choice made. It is noticed, then, that no new rope is made in making a new knot, but rather the same as the last and one before that ad infinitum (or at to the beginning of the rope). Thus it can be said that the fifth knot is resulted from the creation of the first knot. It can be further reasoned therefore, that choices of a generation long ago, like that of the American Civil War, can have effects that are felt and experienced by the generations of today; this is confirmed in today’s society, from racial and gender equality issues to the rise of modern weaponry.
Let’s now assume that each person has their own rope, which can be knotted with another person’s rope. Again, each knot is a choice. Let the knotting go on long enough with enough ropes, and you get a complex system of ropes and knots that even Chaos Theory may have trouble attempting to unravel, decipher, and understand.
I think that this tether that connects us, it is the tether of choice. What we do, say, or hear changes everything about us, be it knowingly or unknowingly. One cannot know how an event in the distant future will cause a memory recall of a past experience wherein something was done, said, or heard, and how it will affect the decisions made from then on.
We all have knots, and new ones are tied everyday. Some are big and some are small. However, they all have effects that change the way we live our lives. Choices are multi-dimensional, reaching across time and space. We’ll never know the full extent of the effects of our choices, nor for how long those effects will be felt. It is imperative that we be wise in the tying of our knots, and remember how each knot, like the mythical Gordian Knot, cannot be unraveled after being tied.
