I don't believe in Kismet but there certainly are connections

Stardust and moonlight. Dwarf and elf.
You have become a caricature of your former self.
Drifting in time. Drifting in space.
Caught in the maddening, never-ending race.

Long time, no see. Long time no? See. Long time? No, see. Okay, I'll stop. But this is what happens. I'm sitting there, minding no business (my own business == no business), a nice little idea pops itself into my head and becomes comfortable. Then my brain detects the foreign presence and goes, "Hey! That's a nice little idea. I must blog about it." Then, I alight from the vehicle/finish watching what I was watching/finish reading what I was reading/finish making what I was making.. you get the gist, and the nice little idea pops itself out of my head just as easily, almost as if it were saying "Cheerio! Don't mind me. Just passing through." So, there I am, sitting in front of the laptop (which could give the Ramapithecus/Australopithecus/All-other-pithecuses a run for their money in just being extremely primate), trying hard to remember the bleeding nice little idea. And of course I can't (not for the lack of trying because I end up giving myself headaches with all the thinking (in hindsight, it could be because of the long overdue visit to the optometrist (about which I tweet regularly))), and hence, I end up writing things like the first few lines of this post.

Now that we have that out of our way (I had to explain that (sorry)), more unnecessary rambles coming up (hey, don't look at me, you sealed your fate by reading beyond the first line word syllable letter).

It all started when I was a kid (not all the lunacy and confusedness. That's relatively recent. I'll get to the "it" sometime in the near future, if you haven't managed to fall asleep), like really tiny, dedh footiya type. I did not like trucks and would count all the trucks that passed by (okay, maybe that was a wrong anecdote to prove the previous parenthesis (but I wasn't proving the previous parenthesis (hence proved(?)))) and once in while I took a break from all the counting and set about finding connections between people (not in a "OhMyGodIAmAGeniusLookWhatIFound" (in other words Touch) way but a "Hmm, so my uncle is related to my aunt and my aunt is related to my cousin so my cousin must be related to my uncle" (yes, that's an exaggeration and no, I wasn't that slow)) kinda way.

Anyway, the point is the whole six degrees of separation and some recent study going "it's way less than six", sometimes ends up giving me the creeps. Sample this:

"Hey, how do you know xyz?"

"School-mate. You know xyz, how?"

"Boss's spouse."

"Hmm."

So, this person who addressed me as Farex (I've had a string of weird "pet" names including Faraday, Ferrari, Faro (which ended up sounding like Paro) but more on that some other time) is now married to a friend's boss. Hmm. On the surface it isn't creepy, but underneath the "Hmm", you have all the past life skeletons ready to tumble out (for someone who has zero skeletons (people wanting to call me one really haven't seen me in a long time or have lost all sense of reality), I am paranoid. I've said it once, I've said it twice, I've said it.. so on and so forth till I've said it a million times)

Then there are the "bumped into" moments.

"Hey guess who I bumped into?"

"Obviously we know a lot of common people and I cannot be expected to pick one out of them, so spare me the drama and tell me whom did you bump into?"

"And they call me drama queen *eye-roll*. Bumped into xyz1."

"Oh. How is xyz1?"

"Doing okay apparently. Didja know xyz1 went to abc and abc1? Planning to settle down in abc2."

"Good for xyz1. Hmm."

This whole "bumped into" is just pure evil. It starts innocently enough but soon starts going into gossip mode. As much as I would love saying I'm not a gossip-monger, I am as guilty as the next person claiming that. Now, I don't mind bumping into people, but more often than not, it serves nobody's purpose. Except gossip's.

"OhMiGodIt'sYou!"

"Oh hi!"

"Long time."

"Too long"

"How have you been?"

"How have you been?"

"Good."

"Good."

"We should catch up sometime."

"Totally. I need to get going or I'll end up missing <insert random activity here>. But it was good to see you."

"You too. Bye."

"Bye."

And we part ways without having exchanged numbers/mail ids/any other form of contact. But we geniuses promise to meet up the next time we "bump into" each other, again.

I end your agony here by summarising (yes!). So, in summary, most people are nice, from a distance. Everyone gossips (my version of "Everybody lies") and everyone is not necessarily evil for doing that. This is the age of the shrink (no, not the psychiatrist/psychologist (honestly, who gets the difference between the two? I know it on a pedagogical level but honestly...) but the verb). The world is shrinking and my ivory tower looks smaller each time I view it from the outside (which requires astral projection but we won't get into that at this late hour). Maybe an asteroid won't bump into Earth and wipe us out, maybe all of us will just start bumping into each other all the time and that will be the end of that.