Six Degrees of Association

By now, you’ve probably read my account of the New York Half Marathon, and unless you’re a runner, were probably not that fascinated by the details.  You might find more interesting what happened after the race. 

Once the awards were distributed and the runners began to dissipate from Battery Park, I started to make my way back to Midtown, where my family was just wiping the sleep from their eyes.  I only had $2 –the exact fare of the subway, and many dollars less than the cost of a cab – so, I headed to the nearest subway station.   

On the way, I asked a fellow runner whether I was taking the correct train and he advised me to take a different.  It was just then that another fellow walked up with the exact same question….”How do I get to Times Square?”, albeit with an accent from far away (yes, further than Hoboken).  I told him that I’d already figured it out and was headed up there anyway, so he might as well follow me.   

Since we were in Manhattan, neither of us made much eye contact, or even spoke, as we walked quickly up the streets of Lower Manhattan.  He was dressed in a long sleeved shirt and walking shorts so I didn’t notice that he had run the same race as I.  But after 5 minutes of walking along side each other in silence, I noticed he was carrying one of the goody bags they’d given the runners.  This gave me the opportunity to open up the conversation a bit. 

I found out he was from Belgium, he’d come into NY on a combination business and pleasure (running) trip, that he was into technology and was now running his own consulting organization where he advised Chief Technology Officers on technological advances available from other companies….pretty interesting stuff.  I told him what I did, how I traveled to Europe for work, my reflections on the race, and a lot of superficial things. 

I didn’t go into my whole purpose for racing, the fact that I was running 10 Half Marathons, that I was raising money, that my son was Autistic.  Frankly, I had the time to speak about it, since I was technically on vacation and had all the time in the world.  But I was plugged into the city’s energy, feeling the world pass me by in a hurry, and I didn’t want to get left behind. 

None-the-less, by the time I’d arrived in Times Square, I felt like I’d made a connection with this guy.  What started out as an awkward walk beside a stranger, turned out to be a small adventure as we trekked through the subways of Manhattan, and the potential start to a new friendship.  What I didn’t realize is to what extent we were connected. 

We reached his hotel, bid our goodbyes and instead of giving out my email address I gave him my blog’s url, since Blogs are the Web 2.0 way of communicating and collaborating.  He did the same.  I meant to take a look at it as I got back to the hotel, but instead I turned my full attention back to the family and NYC, and let the address lay in the bottom of my goody bag. 

Yesterday, I noticed that someone had visited my blog from a referring site (e.g. a link on someone else’s site) I wasn’t familiar with, so I followed it back to see where it came from.  It was from the blog of my new friend Koen.  In his posting, I read a similar account to the one I’ve given here, but I was amazed to read that Koen’s brother Johan, who had recently passed away, had been Autistic as well.   

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I’d met someone with an Autistic family member, but I have to say that I got goose bumps at all the coincidences.  If you know me, you know I’m not a religious or superstitious person, but I do take note of the unlikeliness of me bumping into someone in a subway in NYC who knows Autism like I do, is a runner with a similar Half Marathon time, and in the technology field. 

It makes me wonder what other similarities Koen and I may have found had we spoken a little longer.  Do we know the same people?  Have we been in the same place before at the same time?  Were we born on the same day? 

Just out of curiousity, I tested how close we were connected by looking him up on LinkedIn, the Networking web site where people list their professional contacts.  As it turns out, we are separated by 3 degrees…he knows someone that knows a friend of mine.

There is a premise that every inhabitant of planet earth is separated by no more than six people, based on existential studies in connectedness.  Personally, I find this concept strangely fascinating and yet disturbing.  If we are truly all so connected, then why is it that we often seem to be at such odds with each other?  Perhaps its because we often think of what separates us and not what connects us.

 I choose to believe that a majority of the world’s conflicts come from not understanding how we are all in so much alike.  We are all running the same race, providing for our loved ones, grieving for their losses and trying to make our mark on this earth before our time is up.  If we just had a few more minutes to speak to each other, we might just all realize how similar we all really are.