Some years back I wrote an email to one of the most powerful women in Norway. It was meant as an encouragement and not really supporting her political views. It was more acknowledging the challenge it must to be to have a position like hers. She wrote me back and thanked me, but we never met. Then.

A few years later I was in a empty bar waiting for a date who actually stood me up (it turned out he had a good reason), and the woman from the former paragraph just walked in. I had to make myself known; short hand shake, presentation and small talk. Moment of acknowledgement.

And I just realized: You can meet just anybody at any time. No pre warning and no limitations. We’re living in a small world. Everything seems to be more and more connected.

A business connection livng in New York was telling me about a guy he knew in Oslo. He was describing his work and accomplishments. I looked at him and just said; “That is my cousin!” Of course.

Like when my friend told me she was closely related to one of the Beatles’. My world shrunk again and the world history came very close.

It is a lot of action in Egypt these days. A few thousand years back this guy Joseph was in prison there. He had a gift of interpreting dreams and was brought to Pharaoh’s house to do so. It gave him a position as a minister in the government in a very challenging time. I bet his 11 brothers felt strange when they came from the famine in Canaan to buy food and realized their brother, who they thought was dead, was in charge of the whole development program.

Small world.