[00:00:03.58] -How many times have you wondered, does my one life make a difference in the world?
[00:00:09.46] Do I have the potential to accomplish great things?
[00:00:14.32] Come with us on this journey, exploring interconnections through science, and across cultures and time.
[00:00:23.13] Noticing how your life impacts people, places, and events around the world, whether or not you're there to see the results.
[00:00:33.31] Nothing exists in isolation.
[00:00:37.58] Your smallest act can have a ripple effect far beyond which you can imagine.
[00:00:44.59] We are a part of something much greater than ourselves.
[00:00:50.52] Welcome to the Connectivity Project.
[00:00:55.35] (MUSIC) -We are all far more profoundly connected than anyone can possibly imagine.
[00:01:10.29] -We recognize that the land and the people are one and interconnected.
[00:01:15.31] (MUSIC) -A butterfly beats its wings in Brazil, weeks later, a tornado forms in Texas.
[00:01:25.19] Can these two events possibly be connected?
[00:01:29.10] You've probably heard of the "Butterfly Effect." Mathematicians call this "Chaos Theory." -One of the characteristics of Chaos Theory is this idea that small changes for an initial condition can have big ripple effects later.
[00:01:47.07] -What are the implications for a world where small actions can cause large ripple effects that we cannot even trace?
[00:01:56.15] What are the implications for our place in this world?
[00:02:00.20] How can this inform the choices we make?
[00:02:03.93] -How many times have your choices right now been affected by just a simple statement somebody gave you, from a parent, a favorite instructor or from a friend.
[00:02:12.64] That's the whole point of Chaos Theory, is that you never know which is the initial event that will have the biggest effect.
[00:02:21.09] That means every opportunity we have, we don't know how precious that is.
[00:02:25.80] We don't know how important that will be later.
[00:02:29.39] -Because of the illuminating implications of Chaos Theory, scientists are re-examining their work in an interconnected way.
[00:02:39.17] The concept of the food chain, learned by earlier generations, has been replaced with the food web.
[00:02:48.28] It is no longer just about who eats whom, but who is reliant on whom or what.
[00:02:57.63] -Ecosystems are understood as networks of organisms that feed on one another.
[00:03:03.68] And so describing life in terms of networks is part of a much larger change of worldview that is now happening generally in science and in society.
[00:03:17.03] I heard again and again, "Well, you may not know it, but there is a conceptual revolution happening in..." and then you can fill in forestry, neurosurgery, anthropology, whatever field.
[00:03:34.77] In order to understand networks, we need to understand patterns, and we need to understand relationships.
[00:03:43.77] That's what systems thinking is all about.
[00:03:48.79] -Although science and modern society have only recently begun using this way of viewing the world, it has been recognized and celebrated by diverse cultures and faiths around the world, and throughout time.
[00:04:03.85] (WOMAN SINGING) -Connectedness from my worldview, and the worldview I believe of most indigenous wisdom keepers, elders, spiritual leaders, is a deep knowing from inside and a deep sense of being profoundly connected to all that is, everything in creation.
[00:05:00.23] There is no separation.
[00:05:01.62] All separation is totally illusion.
[00:05:04.72] Most indigenous leaders and spiritual leaders understand this.
[00:05:09.16] -"Aloha" is not just the catchy word that the tourist industry has attempted to expropriate, it's a way of being.
[00:05:21.81] It is a state of being.
[00:05:25.21] Aloha defines not only our relationship to the heavens, but our relationship to each other.
[00:05:33.19] Aloha is love, but to engage Aloha fully it needs to move.
[00:05:39.62] It needs to flow from one person to another.
[00:06:10.60] -China, 1958.
[00:06:13.98] Mao Zedong, the founding father of the People's Republic of China, launched a campaign to rid the country of four pests.
[00:06:20.84] Sparrows were included on the list because they eat grain seeds.
[00:06:25.29] Across the country, people banged pots and shoot trees, forcing the birds to fly until they died of exhaustion.
[00:06:33.01] Grain yields did not increase.
[00:06:36.43] Though adult sparrows eat grain, juvenile sparrows eat insects.
[00:06:40.56] Insect populations boomed.
[00:06:43.19] Locusts, in particular, swarmed over the country, devouring the crops.
[00:06:48.15] In the resulting famine, 35 Million people died of starvation.
[00:06:53.26] Eventually, China imported sparrows from Europe in an effort to restore balance to the ecosystem.
[00:07:00.94] -There's a couple of modern belief systems that I think have led us astray.
[00:07:09.83] One is that man is superior to all other life, and that separates us from this tree, from the ocean, from the animals that live there.
[00:07:24.96] -It's this disconnection that is destroying Mother Earth, pushing all of Mother Earth's life support systems over the edge, creating the violence where we're doing incredibly horrific things to each other as human beings.
[00:07:39.37] All because we are profoundly separated inside first.
[00:07:44.36] Nothing is created outside until it's created inside first.
[00:07:47.65] I'm trashing on the outside, because I'm trashing the environment inside.
[00:07:51.59] I'm critical of you, because I'm critical of me.
[00:07:53.71] I'm separated outside, because I'm separated inside.
[00:07:59.53] -For many people in many parts of the world, traditional values of connection have been usurped by values of overconsumption and unlimited economic growth.
[00:08:10.71] Too often, competition and greed rule the day.
[00:08:17.42] -Where I grew up, you don't talk to strangers.
[00:08:21.04] It's not polite to talk to strangers.
[00:08:24.57] Don't make eye contact, don't waste your time talking to each other, because it's not safe.
[00:08:29.86] No one actually tells you that, but that's being modeled.
[00:08:32.93] Disconnection is being modeled.
[00:08:36.05] -We have a greeting amongst our people.
[00:08:38.20] We say, "Angwah," and we greet each other like that all the time.
[00:08:41.21] That means, "Hello, my other self." That's a regular normal daily greeting that we have.
[00:08:48.14] I actually see you as my other self.
[00:08:52.55] We are exactly made up of the same consciousness, the same essence, the same life force as each other.
[00:09:03.64] -A Bushman was explaining to a friend of mine, that when he sees a little bird for the first time, and he recognizes it as an individual, he recognizes it-- He's not recognizing that it's a song sparrow.
[00:09:17.94] He's saying that's that song sparrow.
[00:09:20.46] When he recognizes it, in the eye contact, there's a moment of mutual recognition, almost a greeting.
[00:09:26.35] It's informal.
[00:09:28.04] He says, "In that moment, a little thread will form between me and that bird.
[00:09:31.98] If tomorrow I come out again and it's the morning again, and I see that same little bird in that same area, that thread will thicken.
[00:09:40.88] As I move through my life and that bird moves through its life, I eventually discover that it's a male and that it has a mate, and this is its mate and they have a nest in that bush, which is why I see it in the bush.
[00:09:52.66] It gets upset when the mongoose comes and it says these things, the same way I get upset when the lion comes by our family.
[00:09:59.31] So I begin to see that we share common things, and the thread becomes a string and over time become a chord, becomes a rope." Then the Bushman says, "This is what it means to be a Bushman.
[00:10:10.07] We make ropes with everything in nature.
[00:10:13.61] The stars, the sun, the moon, the winds, the weather, the soil, the ground, the insects, the animals, the plants." -We have laws in Hawaii, the Aloha Spirit Law, that actually is on the books, and actually says that all decision makers and judges and people can invoke Aloha in making any kind of judgment or decision.
[00:11:22.46] -We really have to think about how to foster connectivity.
[00:11:26.18] How do we build the muscles, so to speak, to allow that river to get stronger and stronger and stronger?
[00:11:33.05] We're designed to be connected.
[00:11:35.42] And when our body, mind, soul, spirit complex, our being-ness tastes real connection again, in a safe way, we rush to it, and it fills out something in us that we were longing for, we didn't even know we were longing for it.
[00:11:50.96] (MUSIC) -In this web of life, everything is connected to everything else, directly and indirectly.
[00:12:28.32] If we looked at the world in a systemic way, this would help us to solve the major problems of our time.
[00:12:38.01] -The presence of interconnectivity inhabits every corner of our lives.
[00:12:43.26] From the air we breathe that comes to us from the trees, to a death that sparks a global grassroots movement for racial justice, to a pandemic that becomes more than a health crisis.
[00:12:57.40] We can see that each of us is connected to places and people far beyond our own backyards.
[00:13:05.27] -When we see ourselves as being parts of a larger whole, that gets us to the point of feeling empowered, but it also gives us a sense of responsibility.
[00:13:15.60] Everything we do does have a ripple effect to the larger system.
[00:13:19.83] Each of our choices is an economic choice, but it's also a social choice, a political choice, an ecological choice.
[00:13:27.03] -We have choices every day to decide to be in conflict or to be in harmony.
[00:13:36.28] To feel the oneness or to feel the separation.
[00:13:42.47] -Every decision is an opportunity to affect our shared world.
[00:13:47.09] The choice is up to each and every one of us.
[00:13:51.79] Keeping these interconnections in mind, what will you do with your opportunities?
[00:13:56.90] (MUSIC)