Saturday, July 5, 2008

Small World

Hooray for a classic Fourth! Grilled food, fresh fruit shortcake, good company, and spectacular fireworks. From our seats in a huge green field we saw distant displays from as many as four other locations, before and during our own city-sponsored extravaganza. One of the other guests in this company turned out to be a writer also. We compared notes and talked shop. She explained her day job in which she mid-wifes books into life, and her work as a regular columnist for a Colorado paper. Well, turns out it's the same paper for which a good friend of mine writes. Then we did what writers do these days, exchanged blog links. So, Marla, if you're there, good morning. Even though it's Saturday, I'm at the desk, with much to do. The apartment is quiet except for the birds in the front yard and a distant lawn mower. The neighborhood has gone away for the weekend.

The world is small, as evidenced by the theory of six degrees of separation, a theory on trial at Face Book. So far, 4 million people have linked themselves electronically. I'm not sure this supports the original theory as I understand it, that if we think hard, we can draw a pretty short line through people we know directly to the person we want to meet. For instance, if I wanted to meet the Dalai Lama, I bet I could connect through friends/aquaintances at the Shambala Center where I used to attend meditation classes. I respect HHH the DL, but have no real reason to meet him. To do so might be presumptuous. Meeting someone at a party, however, who knows someone you know, but whom the hostess does not know strikes me as more synchronous. A long time ago, a nurse/officer in the AF warned her new recruits to behave because the AF was a small world and shenanigans would come back to haunt the miscreant. Just so, the writing world is small. Isn't that a kick?

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