Six degrees of separation...

The first time I heard about the concept of ‘The six degrees of separation’ was soon after I joined Facebook. A friend had sent the ‘Six Degrees’ Facebook application which calculates the distance between people on the network. As I disliked having lots of applications on my profile, I did not accept it, but read up on ‘Six degrees of Separation’. It states that everyone in the world on an average are separated from everyone else through six other people. Being the ‘die hard’ Bon Jovi fan that I am, I remember thinking, hmmm… I wonder if I can connect to him in six levels…

Just yesterday as I was chatting to a colleague I found out that yes I could! Turned out that the son of another colleague knows Bon Jovi’s eldest daughter Stephanie as they attend the same school!!! So that means I’m connected to Bon Jovi in 4 levels!

When she mentioned it, I just thought, wow the world really is growing smaller! With many of us having travelled on studies or work or at least knowing others who have travelled all over the world it’s turning into one big global village day by day.

With the advent of social networking tools such as Facebook, twitter and linkedIn and Skype it’s easier than ever to keep in touch across the miles too… the physical distance between people is getting less and less relevant, after returning back to Sri Lanka and moving to our own house (more on my new home and work on a later post) we still have not been to see our neighbors due to busy schedules, but have managed to at least send a message or email to most of my friends in Switzerland and Cambridge. I know more about my friends on FB living it different countries than about my aunties or uncles in SL who are not on FB!

I have over 600 friends on FB and on linkedIn 250 direct connections with over 3 million connections 3 degrees away. At this rate it does sound like I can connect to anyone in the world (at least the part of the world that is online) if I were to look at 6 degrees away! Of course this wouldn’t work with the many people living in isolated or rural areas, who haven’t had the opportunity or the interest in travelling outside their towns, and who may not know many people. But for many others, even if they have not travelled, they would know someone who has, and can be connected to that person’s network.

What I've also come to realise  is that even these social networks, friendships across the miles all run on the basic principles of any relationship, you need to give before you can expect to receive.  You have to be a connector yourself, when others need help, and then often help comes your way when you need it. Whether in person or across the miles, lasting relationships are all about keeping in touch and being interested in the other person, its not only about you... For me this network has been invaluable in my last few vagabond years, from putting me in touch with people in cities I’ve visited, to giving job advice or forwarding CVs when I was searching for a job. When I first went to Geneva I stayed with a couple introduced through my father's friends friend.  Another cool fact is considering how we can connect to almost anyone if we go through a few degrees is that someone in your network is bound to know something about anything you can think of!

Time to say Good Bye…

These last few days have been quite difficult, as I’m getting ready to leave Geneva, my home for almost 4 years. While the physical aspect of leaving the apartment, dealing with administrations, ending contracts with phone, electricity, etc. getting rid of all the furniture was challenging, especially as they needed to be done in my broken French, the hardest part is saying ‘Good Bye’.

Good bye to all the wonderful people I’ve met... Good bye to Global Fund and my colleagues who’ve become friends for life… Good bye to the Young Catholic group that started out as a weekly bible reading group but now we’re one big colourful family… Good bye to all the other friends I’ve made along the way, especially while travelling and at all sorts of expat get-togethers.

I think it first started to sink in, as I gave away all the furniture in our apartment to Caritas, and sat on the cold empty floor with my laptop. Then yesterday I said Good Bye to our little apartment and handed over the keys and now am staying with some friends… I have also been having farewell lunches or dinners almost every other day as I really want to meet everyone before leaving. I was especially touched by our team farewell yesterday, but I also felt a little melancholy as I will not be seeing them for a long time.

I still remember arriving here in Geneva in May 2008 apprehensive about a new life in a new city with just one suitcase and no idea what was in store for me… but in the last few years, I’ve had amazing experiences and travelled to many places that I wouldn’t have dared to even dream about… It’s been a rollercoaster ride with many more highs than lows.

Now it’s time to say Good Bye… As they say ‘every end is a new beginning’… So now I’m looking forward to many more adventures with my family and friends in Sri Lanka.
I will end this post by saying Thanking each and every one of you who have made my stay here memorable, and I would love to show you our little island Sri Lanka sometime… You all made Geneva a home away from home for me.

Good, Truth, and Usefullness

These days I'm back in Sri Lanka for a 5 week vacation. The feeling of freedom I have thesedays is amazing, I'm spending so much time with friends and family. It;s lovely to be able to chat without looking at watches and thinking of what to do next but just to be able to live in the moment and value the time spent with people the people I love

Another thing that I was thinking of as I chat was how we sometimes seem to have this bad habit of trying to gossip or find fault with others. This reminded me of the famous saying by Socrates.

One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance who ran up to him excitedly and said, "Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?"
"Wait a moment," Socrates replied. "Before you tell me I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Test of Three."
"Test of Three?"
"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my student let's take a moment to test what you're going to say. The first test is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"
No," the man said, "actually I just heard about It."
"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second test, the test of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?"
"No, on the contrary..."
"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him even though you're not certain it's true?"
The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.
Socrates continued. "You may still pass though, because there is a third test - the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?"
"No, not really."
"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all?"

I don't know if it's really something Socrates said or a rumor, but it really spoke to me, and I thought specially during this Christmas Season and for the New Year I will try to think if what I say is True, Good or Useful before talking about others.

Making Friends...

As soon as I came to Switzerland I didn’t really know many people here and was very keen to make friends, especially as I came here alone without family. So I started going for many random events just to get to know people. But recently I found myself thinking… I’ve been so busy running around trying to get to know more people, but can I really call them friends, I often go to one of these events and talk to a number of people for a few minutes and often have forgotten even their names by the time I leave the party. I think that out of fear of being alone I have just gone to the other extreme, going for every event and party organised to make sure i meet new people, but not paying enough attention to the friends that I already have...

When we say 'How are you' do we even stick around for the response, do we really care how the other person is, or just asking mechanically? I recently found myself saying 'I'm good and you?' in response to 'Hi' that was when I started to think about how mechanical this has become!

To make real friends, you have to listen, pay attention and remember what the other person has said and build the relationship, so similar to improv... not just say something like a reflex action while thinking of many different things. Otherwise these friendships (can I even call them friendships) are on the surface and not deep, I've often wondered why I don't make the kind of close friends that i used to make at school, some of whom are still my best friends. .. I guess one major difference is that in those days we said what we mean and meant what we said…today we're so busy and we are often pre occupied...There's the TV, Radio, thinking of other things, we're bombarded with so much information...

So I decided that I should try to give more time and effort to my existing friendships, and really get to know the friends that I have made recently rather trying to meet so many new people, but not really know any of them.