Six Degrees of Separation

A while back there was this popular idea going around known as the "Six Degrees of Separation."  In essence, this idea means that you are connected to any other person in the world within six or fewer steps.  It shows how closely the human race is bound together no matter how different we may seem or how various our cultural backgrounds or other aspects of our being.

Yet have you ever considered that it also means you are only six degrees of separation away from mass murderers such as the recent one in Las Vegas?

Perhaps now you will not find the idea so comforting.

Now you may prefer to hold to the theory that gun control is the solution to the problem of mass murder.  Were you to propose that to my face, I should be forced to give assent with one stipulation: it would require the complete banishment of all guns from the face of the earth (and I certainly wouldn't mind getting rid of the black arm and returning to the day of the sword), but that would be a feat to accomplish indeed.

So I would rather wind these two popular topics of idle conversation into one: what if instead of spending so much time jawing about mass murderers, you sent a message of love to some poor tempted soul through the six degrees that separate you?  For all you know something as simple as a smile at a stranger might brighten his day enough that he decided to buy coffee for someone who then felt a sudden desire to call up an old friend and so on until it reached the afflicted spirit of someone who felt the world worthy of destruction?  Might he then change his mind?

Maybe you will never know.