4 Degrees of Separation
This entry has nothing to do with Opera nor does it tell you when there will be an Opera7 beta. It actually has to do with something a little more important than that.
It's been hot here for too long. (This isn't about the weather either.) A few days ago, maybe a week or so, we had a break in the weather. Finally we could open the windows. During the summer we keep the house at 78F or 79F thanks to the wonderful marvel that is central air conditioning. After the weather broke, it was 71F without any A/C. I joked about "8 degrees of separation" between comfort and discomfort.
Pause scene. Hold. Switch.
As part of my daily visits, I stop by ScottAndrew.com.
A few days ago I read Scott's post about the bombing in Bali. I am shamed to admit that I didn't think much about it at the time. It's being called Australia's 9/11,
he wrote. 180 dead didn't seem to compare with 3,000. A tragedy, but not really what I would base a comparison on...
Maybe it's the fact that the world seems more and more insane, or maybe it seemed so far away (I have friends and e-friends from Australia, we did discuss the bombing on a mailing list that I'm on, and I wasn't unsympathetic... I just didn't think much about it.)
Fast forward 11 days, and Scott posts a list of cool CSS sites which I follow. One of the links is to EmptyBottle.org. The site has, no doubt about it, great CSS. Except that I didn't care much about the CSS.
The author, Chris, had a friend, Rick, who was in Bali at the time of the bombing.
More than that, he was injured.
More than that, he died.
As I was reading through the posts, I came across the name of an old friend and former professor of mine (A.K.M.A), who is mentioned in Chris' site.
Tim
AKMA
Chris
Rick
4 degrees of separation.
Checking the dates, I realize that about the same time I was thrilled with some cooler weather, Rick was dying half-way around the world.
We'll now pause while I consider what a self-absorbed life I must be leading to have given more thought to the weather than to people who had been the victims of terrorism.
We're all in this together. It's one not-particularly-big-anymore planet, and it's the only one we've got. We think we're living these independent lives, and we all nod, roll our eyes, and sigh when someone makes the "butterfly flaps its wings" analogy of the cause and effect lives that we're living here.
But as long as we keep thinking of the world in terms of "us" and "them" where we can distance ourseves from "them" by any number of various means at our disposal, we're never going to get very far and this world isn't going to get much better.
I don't know what to do to solve all the problems of the world. I get overwhelmed just trying to sort through hundreds of bug reports.
For me it was important to read Rick's story via Chris' eyes and be reminded of the connection that exists. I encourage you to do the same if it helps you remember the connection we have to each other.... and try to find ways to bring more peace and light to the world. And so will I.