Metaphorical inversion

[gfish]

It occurred to me to me today that saying "small world" when you see a weird coincidence is not only trite, it's exactly backwards. Weird coincidences aren't suprisingly common because the number of objects that can interact in the world is very small. They're common because so much stuff is going on, because the world is so much more insanely complicated than anyone can possibly imagine. The number of interactions is so astronomical, long odd events are constantly happening all around us.

It's a big world after all!

Comments

[gfish.livejournal.com]

I would still say this applies, though. We know more people than we think, and we run into more people than we think. The scope of our interactions, particularly when extended one or two degrees, is far broader than we intuitively believe.