Six degrees...

of obfuscation?

Many of you may recall the movie, Six Degrees of Separation, in which the theory is posited - and exposited - that all of us are connected by no more than six steps away from every last living person on the planet. Or something like that. (This concept apparently was first espoused by Frigyes Karinthy, a Hungarian author and playwright of the early twentieth century.)

I recall enjoying the movie well enough, and within the framework of its plot, it worked. But having lived and worked in a remote village in Nepal, the basic idea just doesn't add up for me. Unless of course a 'step' of separation (or connection, rather) could be as tenuous as something like: 'I know Peter, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal, and in the village of Khateda where he lived was a widow named Kamala who prepared his evening meal of chapattis each night, the flour for which was ground in a tiny mill by the stream, a stream at which a village child played, by the name of Amar Bahadur who went to school each day with a girl Laxmi, who was married off to a village two days' walk away, and whose mother-in-law was uncharacteristically kind, and was thereby spared her life when Laxmi took up an AK-47 and joined the Maoist revolution...' Actually, this one seems to be 'working.' But what of the other millions of Nepalis who never met or saw a PCV? To say nothing of the billions of villagers across the globe who have little or no contact with the 'outside world'?

It's one thing to feel connected by our hundreds of Facebook 'friends,' and thence to each of their hundreds, etc., but such connections seem to loop in on themselves. Basically, I need to see a study which takes two randomized people and attempts to connect them. Thousands of successful times within six steps. This skeptic doesn't think it possible. With something much more than 'he visited China once, where a small boy in Shang-hai by the name of Ang-li lives' - as a step.

Just saying, doesn't add up for me.

However, I now have a direct connection with an acupuncturist in D.C. The connection - this past Tuesday - did not involve any needles, at least not on my first visit. There was much more talking, and discussing posture (like avoiding that slump which I now exhibit rather acutely), and other strategies to address what she seemed to agree was stress related. (She is also a physical therapist.) Or more to the point, how I carry tension. In this case, largely, at night. I am able to sleep okay, but by morning, my jaw is pretty tense and sensitive. It gradually lessens during the day, yet seems to intensify with apprehension, for example, of taking that first bite, or at the approaching tooth brush. Did this visit do the trick? Insofar as keeping me on a path of betterment through non-invasive means (drugs or needles or worse), I suppose so. Will I go back for more? Depends on how much my insurance picks up of her not inconsiderable fee. (She doesn't submit...)

A dharma teacher invoked the 'Heisenberg uncertainty principle' the other day. Simply put, the principle states that when observed an action will have a different outcome. This principle came out of quantum physics, and has elegantly complex math to support it. (I'm kind of weak here on the hard science bit, correct me if I'm wrong, any math-physicist out there who may be reading this - you know who you are.) I don't recall exactly what the relationship to the dharma the teacher had in mind, but while observing the pain in my jaw, the principle seems rather clear. If I move my tongue around the sensitive areas with an intention to note the level of pain, it is greater if I in fact am hoping for there to be little or no pain. The same is true if I take a bite of food, or put in my mouth guard, or whatever. That is, depending on what the nature of my observation is, the outcome is unique. This is perhaps enough solipsistic navel gazing for now...

I will watch what arises, and what precedes it, and gradually figure it out. I feel it slowly lifting. Also will remain connected to y'all, and beyond, by however many degrees of separation it takes.