Chaos Theory

            The notion of a chaotic system is generally introduced through the proverbial construct of a butterfly flapping its wings.  This seemingly trivial act sparks a sequence of unlikely events, each conditionally dependent upon its predecessor, until some massive meteorological event (often a hurricane in the classic story-telling) occurs, being directly attributable to the initial flap of the wing.  While this tale makes for appropriate discussion fodder in some ivory-tower classroom, it is the unlikely sequences of events which direct the lives of human beings that prove truly fascinating.  Voltaire wrote Candide in such a manner, throwing his protagonist through an outrageous series of pleasant and horrific experiences until ultimately, he is left to “cultivate his garden.”  Whether it is the best of all possible worlds or coincidental is unknown and unexplained.  Either way, the character recognizes that if not for the previous events, many of them torturous, he would not be, at present, contentedly tending his garden.  While better than the somewhat contrived butterfly flap spawning a natural disaster, it is still ultimately a work of fiction.

            Non-fiction equivalents carry far more meaning.  The story I wish to share lacks the drama of Voltaire or the physics-driven elegance of the butterfly.  That said, the analysis of cause & effect in our own lives can be jarring nonetheless. 

            During the late winter or early spring of 2005, my junior year in college, I found myself in the process of seeking an internship for the upcoming summer.  At Princeton, this environment is highly competitive and for a young man without a clear professional objective, bewildering and overwhelming.  Generally, the options are numerous, but lacking all diversity in the broader sense.  The choices are, simply, high finance or the handful of notable consulting firms which recruit at ivy-league schools.  When a pharmaceutical market research consulting firm came to campus, I scheduled a very brief campus interview – the type in which a student stumbles out of a messy dorm-room dressed to the nines to arrive in a tiny career office (in which formal dress seems equally out-of-place) to be bombarded with the requisite series of questions to assess disposition, teamwork, and reasoning skills.  The student attempts to appear fascinated by the company’s business operations, articulate, confident, yet humble, and in all other manners the perfect image of an employee.  Truly, these are among the most contrived, bullshit-laden conversations in which I have ever participated…and again, I spent four years on an ivy-league campus. 

            With this firm, something felt different.  Though I was given a certain amount of intellectual prodding, I recall discussing my high school, Science Olympiad exploits with a woman who had participated in similar events less than a decade before me.  A follow-up interview was scheduled, this time at their corporate offices.  My interview was scheduled simultaneously with another young woman from my academic department.  We carpooled, first shoveling my car from 8+ inches of snow (she packed her dress shoes to be donned upon arrival, I was far less savvy).  As formal female attire does not lend itself to shoveling, and of course, there was but one shovel in my trunk, that task fell to me.  No worries I thought, after all, had I had not been carpooling, I would have performed exactly the same tasks.  Upon arriving at the offices, my carpool companion headed for the bathroom to clean herself up and don what were probably fashion-wise heels before riding the elevator to meet our hosts.  Given that her academic acumen certainly matched my own and her current aesthetics were vastly superior (my overcoat, shoes, and pants were covered in all manner of New Jersey snow and slush), I figured this interview was lost. 

            After our respective interviews, we rode home together and debriefed.  She felt insecure regarding some of her quantitative responses while I felt rather confident in myself.  I tempered any sense of success with the knowledge that this young woman was the type who would leave an exam concerned about her having passed, then receive a grade in the upper-echelon of the class.  I, on the other hand, generally predicted my exam performance quite accurately.  Thus, though our grades were probably quite similar, our perceptions thereof immediately following tests were greatly divergent.  Thus, on this day, I still presumed that I would be looking elsewhere for summer employment.  I was incorrect. 

            When I received an offer and my classmate did not, I was stunned that she had not been selected, but delighted at my own good fortune.  When I arrived for the job in June, the woman with whom I had interviewed months before pulled me aside to inform me that she would be my manager during the summer.  I was thrilled.  Having heard countless horror stories of arrogant, dictatorial, and petty-minded bosses, a positive experience seemed pre-ordained.  While our first few weeks together were characterized by the growing pains of my personal immaturity and my first taste of the corporate experience, generally, I was enjoying my work, my colleagues, and with the exception of my apartment’s defective air conditioning, my summer.

            As the 4^th week drew to a close, the tone of my summer would shift rapidly, and as a result so too would the course of my life.  Of course, the impacts from my perspective were pithy in scope compared to my erstwhile manager.  She was an athletic, healthy-looking woman in her late-twenties at the time, and from my perspective, a paragon of fitness.  This notwithstanding, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and took a leave from her position to begin treatment.  Despite what I can only imagine has been a period of pain on an emotional and physical level, she still managed to take the time to buy me lunch during my senior year, and even wrote on my behalf to the graduate school where I now study - kind and selfless in a truly impressive manner.

            Our paths diverged.  Her departure led to a lost intern and a lost summer.  I suppose the responsibility for this is shared between the managers forced to assume the burden of an ill-prepared intern for whom they never planned filling the role of the experienced consultant they hoped their project would receive in his place and the intern who, at that time, was neither the programmer, nor the person, nor the professional the job required.  I never received an offer of future employment, which led to applications to graduate school, which brought me from Champaign to a hedge-fund start-up, and back to the Midwest to work towards a Ph.D.  This journey has brought me joy, knowledge, perspective, wisdom, and love.  I was left to consider the alternative, had I remained as a consulting intern under the tutelage of the manager with whom I had worked more successfully.  Perhaps an offer would have been forthcoming, and being a child from a risk-averse, pay your bills first and worry about happiness second family, it is likely I would have accepted it.  While I doubt that such a decision would have left me dateless, depressed, or destitute in the long run, I also sincerely doubt I would have found my place in this world as easily.  I am neither religious, nor fatalistic by nature, and yet, I do feel as though this tremendously tragic event, a young woman’s cancer diagnosis, has changed by life dramatically, and ironically, for the better.

            I find myself acutely aware of the self-centered nature of this essay.  There is an inherent narcissism in recounting the effects one person’s nightmare as they relate to my highly untainted life experience.  I have, after all, been blessed (to date) with a healthy, relatively easy life.  I feel guilt that one person’s life’s misfortune has likely played a tremendously beneficial role in my own.  However, much as we cannot dictate whether or not the butterfly flaps its wings, Candide could not dictate the excruciating scenarios of his life, I obviously had no hand in whatever sparked the growth of malignant cells in my manager’s body.  I am left to feel fortunate, but also curious.  This woman, as best I can tell, has no knowledge of the course of my life, and certainly no awareness of the role her disease has played in it.  Perhaps, some choice I have made, some aspect of my life, some seemingly trivial detail has shaped the life of someone else.  Most likely, I will never know.