Connections

What are the odds?

I realize that people are much more connected than they think. It's interesting because I mean there are some crazy meetings (meeting a high school friend from California in the streets of NY or running across a college friend from Chicago in Korea, etc.) but in some ways, the odds aren't as low as one would think. I mean if you think about the popular hang-outs in these metropolitan areas, the frequency with which our generation travels and goes to said popular hang-outs, there's actually a pretty high chance of running into someone you know.

At the same time, I realize that I don't treat chance meetings as anything related to fate. If someone comes my way or if I get re-connected with someone, I just look at it as a happy encounter and don't think anything beyond it. Is there supposed to meaning behind every encounter we have? If there is, how are we supposed to treat those strangers we encounter that we actually look at? We see many many people on a daily basis, but I'm talking about those people that you actually notice. I don't think I'm the only one who sees masses of people as a single entity. They may be individuals, but they're individuals that don't mean much to me (though with some people, I really wonder what kinds of lives they lead..). But it's exactly that - those people you notice and wonder about (not the loud annoying ones that cause trouble, but the people that with just one look, you end up thinking about). Is there meaning behind that?