Interconnectedness:
Created | Updated Jun 20, 2002
It is a bizarre feeling when you realise that everything that has ever happened to you, during the course of your life, is strangely linked to one event. This event is usually the cause of such a realisation, so therefore adds to the peculiarity.
The word ‘interconnectedness’ first entered my vocabulary via my secondary school history lessons. We were advised to always write a concluding paragraph in our essays which went along the lines of “all the points I have mentioned above are factors in such-and-such a war in sometime-or-other, but none is more important then the others as they are all interconnected, and each is needed for the success of the such-and-such people”.
I had an instant fondness for the word, as it contributed to my history grade improving dramatically. However, my love for the eighteen-letter word increased greatly when I found an alternative carrot.
Now, perhaps would be a good time to explain about my use of the ‘carrot concept’. Well, I’m sure you have probably heard of the ‘carrot and stick’ approach, where a carrot is used to encourage forward movement. Well, my ‘carrot concept’ is based on this, but instead of someone else holding the carrot on a stick, I choose various things to be my ‘carrot’, things that encourage me move in a positive direction.
Anyway, at the point when ‘interconnectedness’ became my favourite word again, I had just changed carrots. The carrot I had previously been following had found a mind of its own, and was beginning to go in a different direction to me. So, I almost had the terrible problem of carrotlessness, which is terrible as it means you no longer know which way to go. Luckily, before this carrot vanished completely round the corner of free choice, I found another carrot. Or rather a different version of the same carrot. Or rather, the original carrot. Or rather, the carrot found me.
So, I found / was found by another carrot. The oddness of interconnectedness set in when I realised that this carrot had also been the original carrot. My original reason for aiming for the moon. The original inspiration I suppose. I found this odd. I also found the number 27 odd, because it is. What really made me raise an eyebrow in confusion though, was that looking back over my life up until this point, I realised that it made an excellent introduction, or first chapter, leading to this point. It had all the subtle suggestions that this was inevitable. Thus the past, the now, and the future, are all, INTERCONNECTED.
