How I Engineer the Butterfly Effect

The Butterfly Effect

There is an idea in chaos theory: a butterfly flaps its wings in one corner of the world, and weeks later, a storm forms somewhere else entirely. The point is not that butterflies cause storms. The point is that in complex systems, small acts ripple outward in ways that are impossible to predict or fully trace.

I have come to believe this is not just something that happens by accident. It can be—carefully, humbly, without guarantee of outcome—engineered. You cannot control where the wind carries your wing flap. But you can choose to flap. You can choose where. You can even help other butterflies find their wings.

The Triangle of Fulfilment

Kailash Nadh—CTO of Zerodha, hobbyist developer, absurdist—asks an uncomfortable question in his 2022 essay: why do obvious things not exist?

His answer is the Triangle of Fulfilment. For any idea to become real, three things must come together simultaneously:

“The pool of people globally who can build a certain thing drops down exponentially from millions to often just a handful—or sometimes even one—when selected for the presence of all three factors.”

— Kailash Nadh, Triangle of Fulfilment

When all three align in one person, the effect is disproportionate to the cause. That is the butterfly. And it can be seeded deliberately—which is what Kailash’s foundation Samagata sets out to do, and what I try to do in my own small corner of the world.

Kailash becomes the butterfly when he works on open-source projects like listmonk and thousands of people use them. He enables the butterfly effect primarily through money and mentorship—funding spaces, programs, and people so that their triangles can complete. I do it through skills and time—showing up, sharing what I know, and building things with my own hands.

My work splits into two kinds: where I am the butterfly, and where I help others become one.

Where I Create the Effect Directly

I am the butterfly.

• Daily practice with children — spending time with children and trying new things on a daily basis; everything I build comes from here first
• Patrango — as a writer, I contribute my own stories and poems directly to children reading the magazine (the magazine is also a platform for other writers, illustrators, and artists who have the intent but no space to publish)
• Creating and curating learning experiences for children and young adults beyond school and commercial events — theatre, nature walks, open library as a third space

Where I Enable Others to Create the Effect

I help others become butterflies.

• Nature Detective & Local Khoji — open-source nature education programs, documented for any educator to pick up and use
• Free mentoring calls — for schools and NGOs building nature-based and experiential learning spaces, openly shared with no fees
• Writing — articles and blog posts in magazines like Sandarbh and Teacher Plus
• Youth Conservation Action Network — mentoring nature education fellows
• Eklavya Foundation, Bhopal — faculty for the Child Development, Learning and Special Needs course
• Nature educator meetup (coming soon) — creating the community of practice that isolated educators need but don’t have
• Designing, building and managing websites - I have built around 6 websites for different non-profit organizations and schools, and I am currently managing 1 website for a school from rural Gujarat.

My direct work keeps my intent alive. My enabling work multiplies it. Daily practice with children is the source of everything—it is where I first feel what is missing, and where the triangle of fulfilment completes itself for me, over and over again.

The butterfly effect is not a promise. It is a practice. It requires showing up daily, staying close to what is real, and trusting that the wind will carry your wing flap somewhere worth going—even if you never get to know where.