“A Sad Man Sitting in a Café” by Matteo Moretti ’17
Just yesterday I was arguing with myself about whether the world is actually evolving or whether the universe is just returning to its natural rhythmic state of regeneration.
Okay, that made no sense.
Let me put it this way: Planet Earth has never been as small as it is now.
No, Earth is not physically shrinking… or is it? (I don’t know I’m not a geologist)
It shrunk metaphorically speaking – due to the quickening growth of physical and verbal communication.
Nobody ever acknowledges the fact that anyone on Earth, at my or anyone else’s will, can now learn in just a matter of seconds what I think, what I do, and who I am. And, apparently the only thing separating me and anyone else in the world is six connections. Just six. Imagine that, being connected to 7 billion people, by only 6 leaps of the imagination.
Now like I mentioned, we can be easily connected in this day and age. But was it always like that? Was there ever a time in human history when this concept of “Degrees of Separation” would have been impossible?
I mean Alexander the Great was a popular guy. But had he ever tried to think about how he might be connected to some Mayan farmer down in Central America he could not have succeeded, not in six steps, not even in a few thousand. Alexander the Great knew less about that Mayan farmer than we do about the true existence of life beyond Earth – even after all these years.
I just don’t understand how all this could have started as a microscopic synapse millions of years ago in some brain. And how it is now possible that this continuous growth has the ability to reduce the world to a mere pile of ashes.
Take this café I’m in for example. The different types of people that walk in here serve as a microcosm to the actual world. You have regulars (such as myself), the employees, occassioners, and randoms.
Following this logic of Six Degrees of Separation, I should be able to connect with a random’s, brother’s, girlfriend’s, Italian tour guide’s, mom’s, acquaintance’s long lost grandmother in the mountains of Nepal.
Honestly, as interesting as that is, I don’t get it. Sure I’ve researched the philosophical, scientific and mathematical explanations.
The ring lattice, the Erdös number, the collaboration difference, the small world phenomenon, basically everything but the kitchen sink.
None of that explains the fact that the last link in the chain of anything and anyone is me.
All it does tell me is that the world can be reduced to nothing in six or less degrees through an example as simple as the man currently interrupting me.
Link one: he doesn’t care that much about people who are being present, writing about feelings.
Link two: not only does he not care, but this world does not value presence nearly as much as it did even 20 years ago – it simply values doing. There is very little regard for not playing the game the reasoning world has set out for you and that world is afraid of anyone who challenges the game.
Link three: this fear is the source of the hysteria and terror that grips the beating and severed heart of the world in its hand.
Link four: hysteria and terror lead to hatred – hatred leads to war – genocide, oppression and other conflicts. Most importantly hatred prevents peace.
Link five: without peace there is no connection, no ground, no root on Earth and the order of the world has been destroyed.
Five links, that’s it. Then what. A new world will appear? Will the particles or eternal power of the universe just align to create another Earth – another life – and another sad man sitting in a café just trying to understand the connections between these energies that hide behind masks like puppets?
If so, then let there be war, let there be hate, and let there be a lack of presence, so that – and here is the sixth link – it will never happen again that someone would dare disturb me while my imagination is at play and my soul is out wandering.
Life is at the surface of everything and nothing.