A friend recently joked with me that it seemed I was unable to go to a conference without meeting up with someone I knew that lived in the area. I laughed politely, but then I realized that she's actually spot on for the last several years. In Toronto for my conference last week I met up with a Canadian friend who took me on a walking tour of the University of Toronto's campus and to the Royal Ontario Museum. Last year I met another friend for steaks in San Diego while at a conference. The year before that I met a seminarian friend for lunch in Boston, and a bookseller friend for lunch on another day in Boston while going to a conference. The year before that I narrowly missed a lunch I could have had with a friend in Seattle at yet another conference! Sadly my next conference is in Washington D.C., the closest I've ever had a national level one, and I actually don't have anyone to meet up with!
The world is a shrinking place it seems from globalization and the instant communications that are afforded by the world wide web. We are not as separated as we once were, even a generation ago. Now when something happens in the world, there is more of a chance of someone knowing a person who is involved. The horrible earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan the other day left me worrying about my roommate's fiancee's parents who live in Tokyo. I was worried about a friend in the Philippines yesterday after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan because they had a tsunami warning out for his country. A friend was deathly worried about a lot of people she knew in New Zealand when the earthquake devastated Christchurch. On the 7/7/07 bombings in London, I was worried about a number of people I knew who lived there. I even know one couple right now who is dating internationally!
For my parents' generation the world was a vast place with distinct cultures that did not mix outside of diplomatic circles and business travelers. For my generation though, someone is just as likely to give a shrug when another person asks who they're talking to and mention someone in a nation half a world away. I'll always remember for instance, my father's shock one day when I was playing a game of Starcraft with someone in Israel and I had thought nothing of it except for the additional lag. Globalization and glocalization folks, it happens. :)
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