It's a tiny, *shrinking* little world

and I'm sure it's getting smaller by the hour. Six degrees of separation? Ha! Try more like three. This came to me as I was sitting on a bus in Hong Kong many, many years ago when I met a woman who had gone to the same high school I had just graduated from. And of course there's nothing like moving 500 miles from your home town just to meet and fall in love with a boy who grew up in that very same town but you never met until you'd both moved away.

I frequently meet people who either know where my hometown is (which is surprising since a lot of folks who actually live near it don't even know it exists) or know people I grew up with. There are also people who seem to move with me, like some great herd migration that none of us are aware of until we meet again someplace different from last time... mostly old Renaissance Faire friends from California (oh those were the days. I miss Black Point, do you?).

The idea of a collective consciousness appeals to me in a way that religion does not. I think that religion tries to reach for it, but throws a monkey wrench into the works by adding the concept of a great omnipotent leader (paternal or not). Do I believe in a higher power? Certainly, but it's the higher power of the collective consciousness, and not just ours. It's everything, all of it, including the space between the stars. You can call it The Force (I just heard Yoda in my head, explaining the Force to Luke. Yes, I'm a geek), you can call it Mana, call it what you will, but it doesn't really need a name. A few people have told me I sound like a secular humanist, but I'm not even sure that explains my philosophy.

But back to that small world idea. The internet of course has a lot to do with it, so do TV, radio, and other forms of communication that we weren't naturally born with. Ideas now spin faster around the globe than ever before, and what are we doing with all of this speed and technology? It does my head in even considering how much we waste this precious new talent we've developed. Instead of opening our minds to new concepts and learning more about each other, we're watching "reality" TV and learning to hate new people we've never even met. Fear, hate and intolerance seem to spread more virulently than... well, the good stuff. Sorry, after 7 years away from people I could actually discourse with, my vocabulary and debating skills have rather gone down the toilet. I'm working on reviving them, though.

I feel quite literally tongue-tied right now. My brain is spinning and I can't find the right words to convey what's going in in there, but since this is a one-sided conversation, it doesn't really matter. This is why I tend to blog more on other peoples' blogs (by responding) than on my own. It's so much easier to respond to a challenge than to sit around waiting for one to come to me.

Anywho, I've got a business plan to write. Nose to the grindstone and all that. *sigh* What a load of crap I've just written. Just the warm up I needed for the task ahead.