11 Months Ago...
It is almost the eleventh-month anniversary of my blog. This does not to be stated for my close friends, but it is evident that I entered the blogging scene to as a way to cope with a difficult time. Seeing my thoughts and feelings on paper has always helped to give me new perspective and feel more in control.
Yesterday, I was re-reading some of my first posts and was taken back to an emotional period. A time when I was controlled by what I felt inside- a time when I let someone else dictate how I felt. Looking back has raised a lot of questions.
Is it okay to let a group of people or a single individual have that much influence over your spirit? Whether it is family, friends, or a significant other... is there a limit to the amount of power we should allow them?
Is it a sign of weakness to be controlled by the emotions that you have or are caused by other people- or is it a sign of confidence that you allow yourself to be overcome with strong feelings?
OR is it a sign of weakness to not allow yourself to open up to people and feel the full spectrum of emotions that come with being vulnerable?
There must be a middle ground, that to some extent, we are all searching for... to be able to love, share, hurt, and be happy while still holding on to our senses.
The Sweetest Sin
Obviously I would be twins with Jessica. I think our thought process is the same sometimes...
Six Degrees
There is a hypothesis that states anyone on earth can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances with no more than five intermediaries.
The first attempt at proving this phenomenon was done in the 1950's. A man gave 100 packages to 100 different individuals in the Midwest and told them the first name of a person, that person's profession, and the general area of where the person lived. The goal was to get the package to the correct person by giving the package to someone they knew that they thought would have the best shot at knowing the unknown. It was expected that it would take about 100 different people to deliver a package.
On average it took between 5 and 7 people to deliver a package.
This experiment was discounted due to its small scale approach.
However...
"In 2001, Duncan Watts, a professor at Columbia University, continued his own earlier research into the phenomenon and recreated Milgram's experiment on the Internet. Watts used an e-mail message as the "package" that needed to be delivered, and surprisingly, after reviewing the data collected by 48,000 senders and 19 targets (in 157 countries), Watts found that the average number of intermediaries was indeed, six."
I find this fascinating, yet also completely terrifying.
Think of the power that could be created through this huge human network.
Think of what could be accomplished.
What if we all used our contacts to do something greater than just deliver a package?
