I cannot recommend enough Jon Ronson’s newest venture, The Butterfly Effect – an audio series
currently available for free on Amazon and Audible.
I’m a big fan of Ronson’s books, and the series offers an
engaging insight into the effect of a single person’s actions on both the
entire pornography industry and the users of porn.
The idea of exploring butterfly effects is one that could
run and run, across multiple topics. I’ve often thought about the remarkable –
though commonplace – effect of single decisions on multiple lives, and I
suppose I’m kicking myself that I didn’t think of doing a similar podcast.
For example, over a decade ago, a young family was looking
through an au pair agency’s book to find a suitable candidate. They chose a
young Polish woman, who duly came to the UK and got on so well with the family
that essentially she became a part of it. After the children had reached school
age, she decided to remain in the country, so she got a job in Manchester. That’s
when we met. We got engaged eighteen months later, married after a two-year
engagement, and have just celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary.
But that decision didn’t just affect the lives of my wife
and I. Shortly after we met, a cousin of one of my wife’s best friends came
over to England from Poland and we helped her to find a place to live. She met
one our colleagues during after-work drinks, they fell in love, and they are
now married with two fantastic children.
It’s incredible to think how many lives have been changed –
and created – from that one choice, all those years ago: just a few people
flicking through an album of photos…
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