Sunday, April 4, 2010

It's a Small World After All




This week, Thursday, Astrid and I fly [faster than a tricycle without pedals!] to Liverpool from Amsterdam for a 5-day honeymoon.  We will be staying with Tracy, a fellow Shutterchancer (SC) whom we met 3 years ago and whom we call the 3rd Musketeer.  On Saturday morning we will meet up with the Three Stooges, 3 SC fellas (all from the UK) we have grown close to over the years:  Bill, Chris and Chad.  Astrid has already met them.  On Saturday afternoon we will then meet up with many other SCers from all over who will get together just for the halibut...most of whom have never yet met each other.

This has got me thinking about our virtual communities and the amount of time we spend with each other on our blogs, reading and commenting back-n-forth.  A virtual friend I recently met through this community, V&V, told me that sometimes these virtual friendships are more real than...reality.  I had to stop and think about that!  She may be right:  I spend more time with some of you than my friends from Atlanta (now that I'm on the other side of the Pond).  On SC I joke around with friends I've never met but whose sentences I can finish.

Our children and grandchildren are growing up in a world where this is the ho-hum norm.  While we all know of the "freak accidents" of the Internet world, sometimes with costly invasions of our privacy, we still bare our souls to each other, perhaps in ways we have never previously done.  If we actually meet in real life, a friendship can be truly cemented...for life.

Already in the young world of V&V I am starting to feel "connected."  Based on my blogging experience thus far, I'm guessing I'll eventually even meet some of you.  It's such a small world after all!  And Petra, a fellow collaborator here on V&V, is only 30 km away!  Sounds like a no-brainer, right?

And now that I think of it, Astrid and I met in 2007  through our SC photoblog community while commenting on each other's posts.  Three months later we had the chance to actually meet while I was in the Netherlands and then started doing photo hunts together.  Almost 3 years later, I moved to Holland where we are now wife and wife...getting ready to go on our honeymoon.

It's a small world after all!  I'm humming
the tune of the Disneyland ride I have taken so many times, reminded of the "children of the world, frolicking in a spirit of international unity, and singing the ride's title track, which has a theme of global peace."

It's a world of laughter,
A world of tears.
It's a world of hopes,
And a world of fears.
There's so much that we share,
That it's time we're aware,
It's a small world after all.

There is just one moon,
And one golden sun.
And a smile means,
Friendship to every one.
Though the mountains divide,
And the oceans are wide,
It's a small world after all.

--By Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman

I would say that just about says it all!




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