Shimjockey

We can think of ourselves as insignificant, but “AU Contraire, Mon Soeur et Frere”, it really is quite the opposite. We are ALL very important, so don’t fool around with thinking otherwise! I’m sure you’re aware of the “Six Degrees of Separation” philosophy, but in case not, I will try and explain it in my own special way. The original thought was known to have come from Frigyes Karinthy, a Hungarian author, poet and playright, at least that’s a few of the hats the gent wore. He surmised that the human race could all be connected by 5 contact points. He lived from 1887 to 1938, so his premise has been kicked around a lot since then.

But he… Nailed it!

While it may have become a popular game using the actor Kevin Bacon as a connection to most, if not all of the current actors of his day in film, plays or commercials, it has some quite fascinating thoughts about it we can all take pleasure in! While I ponder,  how in the “Wide World Of Sports” could I have any piece of this action, the chain of connection starts it’s own action.I’m actually thinking of it as a fabric of contact points that keep lighting up. Anytime now you can start humming the song by Michael Jackson,

“We are the World”!

I think about my own friendships and brief meetings with different people that live a way more interesting life than my own, that’s how it starts! I mean, that’s how you get your foot in the door! You could say we of the “Less Influential” are connecting the world playing piggyback on shoulders of the jet set, but it may be far more simple then that. I have worked with Russian, Ukrainian, Mexican, Honduran, Canadian, African and Native Indian people. Though the friendships may have been brief  and superficial,… They All Count!

Does that get Your Gears Turning?

It does Mine! While I have some doubts, connecting with the indigenous people of say anywhere  the Amazon Jungle is concerned, but even a place like Borneo is open for thought. That’s not our problem though, we’re in the mix, that’s the main point! I’m getting those old “Warm Fuzzies” already!

Now what do we do with this information, You might Wonder? I’m working on that question as I write! For starters though, I think stepping outside your normal routine and interacting with someone you might have noticed, who seems to be all alone, might be one idea. Accepting the fact that you are connected to the whole “Human Race” with all the excitement that might  instill! We’ve become this huge blanket that surrounds the Whole Dog Gone ……

Planet!

I’m Jacked about that fact!

Now there’s some math in all of this and I have decided to permit the experts to share some of their findings to give this more Pizzaz!!

Mathematics

Mathematicians use an analogous notion of collaboration distance:^[26] two persons are linked if they are coauthors of an article. The collaboration distance with mathematician Paul Erdős is called the Erdős number. Erdős-Bacon numbers are a further extension of the same thinking. Watts and Strogatz showed that: Average Path Length = (ln N / ln K) where N = total nodes and K = acquaintances per node. Thus if N = 300,000,000 (90% US pop.) and K = 30 then Degrees of Separation = 19.5 / 3.4 = 5.7 and if N = 6,000,000,000 (90% World pop.) and K = 30 then Degrees of Separation = 22.5 / 3.4 = 6.6. (Assume 10% of population is too young to participate.)

And if that didn’t get your Jets all fired up, maybe this will?

Definition

If Alice collaborates with Paul Erdős on one paper, and with Bob on another, but Bob never collaborates with Erdős himself, then Bob is given an Erdős number of 2, as he is two steps from Erdős.

To be assigned an Erdős number, an author must co-write a research paper with an author with a finite Erdős number. Paul Erdős has an Erdős number of zero. Anybody else’s Erdős number is k + 1 where k is the lowest Erdős number of any coauthor.

Erdős wrote around 1,500 mathematical articles in his lifetime, mostly co-written. He had 511 direct collaborators;^[3] these are the people with Erdős number 1. The people who have collaborated with them (but not with Erdős himself) have an Erdős number of 2 (9267 people as of 2010^[4]), those who have collaborated with people who have an Erdős number of 2 (but not with Erdős or anyone with an Erdős number of 1) have an Erdős number of 3, and so forth. A person with no such coauthorship chain connecting to Erdős has an Erdős number ofinfinity (or an undefined one).

There is room for ambiguity over what constitutes a link between two authors; the Erdős Number Project web site says:

“(…) Our criterion for inclusion of an edge between vertices u and v is some research collaboration between them resulting in a published work. Any number of additional co-authors is permitted, (…)”

but they do not include non-research publications such as elementary textbooks, joint editorships, obituaries, and the like. The “Erdős number of the second kind” restricts assignment of Erdős numbers to papers with only two collaborators.^[5]

The Erdős number was most likely first defined in print by Casper Goffman, an analyst whose own Erdős number is 1.^[6] Goffman published his observations about Erdős’ prolific collaboration in a 1969 article entitled “And what is your Erdős number?“^[7]

So what are they talking about? I think it’s the shrinking of our world, and it’s been caused by a number of things. How our communities are shaped into Hoods is one way, our social net-working is another and to keep it all changing everyday could possibly be our computer age of technology,  which has delivered to us sites like Facebook and Twitter. My first connections with friends I haven’t seen for 40 some years was through a site called “Classmates”.  Some people you knew back in high school you just as soon not want to have any contact with, but for me it’s been one of the greatest thrills!

My thought about what makes us so important to one another is, we are part of something so big it’s beyond our human understanding to conceive of, We are a major part of Creation!  Where all of that takes us is another very exciting part of the fact that You and I are going there together. It’s also another blog in the making, but………… It’s a bit like boarding a jumbo jet ,

 

Taking Off For……

 

 

 

PARTS UNKNOWN!!

 

 .

Do you ever think about what our “World” would be like if we were  relieved of all our baggage, then thrown in together to work side by side on some important project? Forget about your wealth or poverty, your high standing in the community or your seemingly unimportant status. Kick out all of the sexual labels, gay or transexual, permissive or even uninterested in the struggle. Put aside prejudices of all kinds!

Now, Jump into the Pool of Humanity!

Without our secured identities we would all look, Oh so similar. I’m talking about “Getting Down” to the basics of life! We definitely need one another. No doubt we would end up depending upon each other, if for nothing else, Companionship!

Yep, we were meant to be……. Together!

When put together, stripped of our titles, successes or lack thereof, our possessions, you know, the junk we like to collect, We will begin to look on one another with a new set of eyes! Did I say throw out all religions? Oh, Dear No! Yes that stuff has got to go, but once we’re aware of what the real deal is all about, we’ll be able to relax! Seriously it will be as dust, once all the clouds clear in our minds. The upside is the “Freedom” we will have to start relating to each other on a much higher plane.

We will begin to actually start, Caring!

When we Care, we experience “Love”,  in a new and special way! Apart from attraction, we will witness our spirits uniting with each one we are involved with. Not looking to gain something from one another, but finding ways to comfort and possibly ease the load from someone with the scars from their earlier time.

This is beginning to sound like a spiritual…Journey!

You got it! We all will eventually be at that Intersection of Life, but there is no other alternative direction, only speed limits.We will be with so many others in the same place, but from so many different “Time Zones” as well as Backgrounds and Starting Points. If you haven’t noticed, it’s a pretty big world out there, which has been home to, Hmm, should I even guess at the population of humanity up to date?

Nah, Let’s leave that for the Others to figure out!

But it’s Big, in both ways, take my word for it!  The sooner we find out our similarities and start putting aside our differences, we will be able to proceed at a leisurely pace, and it’s worth the sacrifice to shed some of the lofty ideas we have allowed to come into our house and slant the way we look at one another. That stuff is slowing us down,

Big Time!

Now back to Religion! There are plenty of them and we all made it happen! I’m speaking collectively as a Human Race here. If you remember the mass of the human race to date, Hmm, I’m still waiting for the numbers, but if you take a little peek at the world map as we know it today, you can see how it all came about. Then consider how we all seem to have our own wiring scheme in our heads that dictates to us what makes sense and what seems eschewed.

It’s no wonder we’re in the predicament we’re in!

So what’s the Solution? Maybe it’s a multitude of them, but I think it starts with Us, In this pool! You might be treading water next to one of the earliest inhabitants on Earth who somehow is able to speak your language now. He is tickled pink to meet us, not hung up on the semantics, but more! He’s just plain Happy to have our……Company!

We are  Definitely a Lucky and ……….

Strange Brew!.

I feel so fortunate to have grown up in a period of time where music of all kinds was delivered on the radio leaving behind the race card. At least for me it was? It was in the early to mid 60’s, long before the segregation of the day had a chance at destroying the innocence of it all. I know segregation was alive and well during that time, but somehow many musicians didn’t  cop to it. I miss that kind of deposit to my being, though I get a taste of it listening to a 60’s and 70’s oldies station.

Whether it was Little Richard, Elvis, The Beatles, Rolling Stones and so many others, we had it all. Even after getting my driver’s license and trying to afford gas and insurance at the age of 16, doing a paper delivery route that unfortunately was a losing deal, the joy to be on the road at 4 in the morning hearing music that even included performers my parents liked, made it an enjoying time.

I, at this point must reveal that I was as white-bread as could be, growing up in a small eastern Washington state town that unfortunately was very conservative and predominately white-bread too. Thankfully the tunes we got to hear were not all necessarily that way either, they must have been piped in from San Fransico or parts unknown to me, but I loved it.

The Ed Sullivan Show also was a great weekly program that broke  with the racial prejudice that at the time was one of the saddest periods to live in. His show was a break from the rest of the pathetic stuff going on and a chance to see some of the greatest performers ever, regardless of color.

The privilege to watch some of the greatest Soul groups like the Four Tops not only singing but dancing in a synchronized  fashion, let’s face it fans, we were treated to history on B&W TV. Makes one wonder a bit where Michael Jackson picked up some of his moves, Ya think?

I don’t know if there will ever be another time in history concerning music such as what we witnessed back then. So much has changed, a different station for every conceivable difference in musical style now exists. I think it almost makes us prefer one over the other more because of it. It’s so easy to become so selective now. Changing channels on the radio is so quick, some of us don’t even have to do much at all. With our pre-set channels of our favorites, we have made a conscious decision that our selective choices in music far outweigh the chance to hear  artists we had no idea they even existed. Time doesn’t go backward, I know, but I miss some of the old days, with limited choices, but unlimited  surprises!.