Strange Degrees Of Separation

Artists are vain. We don't always mean to be, it's just part of our nature. Even the most humble of artists have a streak of vanity whether they show it or not. By no means is it a bad thing. If we didn't have it, we wouldn't want to leave our mark on the world and we might not create.

Every once in a while I decide to google myself for the heck of it. Oh come on now, you know you've done it too! Being the sort of person who is infinitely curious about pretty much everything, sometimes I like to google people I know too just for the heck of it. I am not checking up on anyone, I am just curious what will pop up.

This morning I decided to google myself and as an afterthought I googled R. Low and behold a site came up on the list that was the exact name of R, so naturally I had to go check it out. It turned out to be a little strange. The guy was from the same city as R's sister, and he was an artist like I am. While they bear no striking resemblance, they did have similarities. Both are tall and slender from what I could gather from the other man's picture. I doubt there is any familial relation, but it was interesting none the less.

When you run across something like that, it strikes you how small the world is and how circular life can be. On some level we are all just a few degrees of separation away from something else that relates to us and yet doesn't.

Some years ago I ran across the same type of thing between myself and Margaret Steiff. We share the same birth date among other little coincidences. I was telling a friend about it right after that, who suggested perhaps I am her reincarnation. I don't really believe in reincarnation, but I do believe that we are all connected, past...present...future...and in other ways we cannot even fathom. I also think that we have an influence on the lives of people we have never met and have no concept of. Perhaps in some way our energies are intertwined and it creates these coincidences. Even if I am wrong, isn't it fascinating when we discover these crossing of paths that never meet!