Complexity and consequences

We had our DNA analyzed four times, twice with 23andMe.  Thinking about ancestors has given me a good chance to see what is too big to know intimately. I was a page in the main Enoch Pratt Library of Baltimore in the history department.  I reshelved books that had been left out or borrowed.  Those shelves and the one I saw in other branches of the library and in the Trinity College library in Dublin gave me other pictures of more reading than I could do or even wanted to do.  It is the same with thinking about ancestors: 

2 parents, four grandparents, 8 greatgrandparents, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, etc.  I just can't keep all those people in mind.  The whole deal is too big for my limited brain.

When my daughter gave me Storyworth to think about my life and experiences, I realized that tiny actions in 8th grade lead to my going to college, getting married, becoming a faculty member at a university in Wisconsin but I had no way at all of knowing that long chain of consequences was at work.  Again, a long chain of important consequences following from each other that I had no way of knowing until years later.

I guess I am guided by intelligence but also by intuition, advice and luck.