The Spider : 1
All things are connected, not via some fabrication of feelings or longing expressed by those who do not understand but via causality (cause and effect) within known reality. Yet, as previously noted this too is an approximation of the truth.

Consequently, that which you do affects the whole of the cosmos, but whatever you do might also be caused by the cosmos. Then do we (a self) do or are we done by something else? Paradoxically [it may seem], neither we ourselves act nor are we ourselves the actions of something else. Since, we are the effects of the else and that which is else is the effect of something further... there is a web-like chain of cause and effect [known as Karma] leading back to particular sources--those whose actions were without cause. A self and the else merely re-act to what comes before them. Thus we shall define true action as follows, that which escapes the chains of causality; action is that which is outside the circuit of before and after. Finally, we shall also define the Self (not a particularity) as that which precedes everything (i.e. all subsequent reactions; reaction-ality).

For how much of what you do is action rather than reaction? ... and what can you say about those around you--do any of them act? It seems rare to witness action in place of reaction, yet if you did how might you know?

The more you act (rather than react) the more you are alive. The more you are alive the more you are then a source of action and thus a catalyst for reaction--a web spinner.

Ask yourself: How might the fly know when it is caught (trapped and controlled) in the web? It is only a fly and, as you'll soon see, there is so such thing.