friendships & chaos theory

have you ever tried to find any of your childhood friends online again in the present day, present time?

This is one of my friends from back in kindergarten or so, back when I used to live in Georgia. We lost contact in 5th grade when I moved to Massachusetts, but I did get his Discord when I came back to visit a year or so after moving.

It’s funny how closely we followed the same path despite growing up with strongly different childhoods and being separated so early in life 

Chaos theory tells us that a small change in initial conditions leads to wildly different outcomes over time

maybe such little time has passed that we only appear to be on the same path, and these similarities will fade as time passes?

maybe it's down to genetics and certain environmental factors that predispose both of us to be attracted to the same path.

I suppose nearly all of us did grow up almost entirely on computers, so there's that factor 🤔

Other people in my Georgia friend group also turned out extremely similar, i.e. this is not a one-off thing...far from it, actually! 

There is one person from that friend group who nearly completely overlaps the path I'm on in life. She literally studies CS at Purdue, now! And I only know this information because I saw her in the Furdue Discord server using the same username that she used on Steam back in 4th/5th grade. What??? It has genuinely been over 10 years since we talked, and somehow we ended up at the same school, studying basically the same subject.

Interestingly, this phenomenon doesn't track with my post-move high school friends. Maybe because I was self-conscious, more desperate for friends, and I stuck around people I didn't really like? The only trait I can think of that we had in common is that we almost all moved to Massachusetts later in life. I really never got along with people who grew up there (with a few notable exceptions). I think it was primarily the enormous class disparity between them and me. People who grew up in Acton had mental foundations built atop a life of comfort and privilege, and I was never in any position to relate to that. Anyway, if you haven't already, I suggest you try this out! It might reveal something interesting about you and how you interacted with people at different stages of your life!