How do you change the world.

So, last night (read: this morning), when I was sharing my futbol pears of wisdom, Louisa was consumed with her iPad.  I figured she was browsing sites with hairy men:

(the left side),

but, evidently, I was way off.  She was changing the world.  Well, perhaps she wasn’t quiet changing it, but certainly taking first good steps on how to change it.  I’m not sure I have her entire consent to publish this.  As a matter of a fact, I believe she said NOT to share or forward this to anyone, when she sent me the email.  But, one life to live…  If I die due to natural causes like: food poisoning, car accident, falling on the train tracks and being ran over by a train, etc., please report an ill-intent to your local police department.

Here it goes:

“So, how do you say there is always traffic on this Avenue in Espanol?” asked Alex to the taxi driver.
The driver said something really fast none of which my brain nor my ears registered. But Alex repeated that phrase effortlessly for which he got a very firm and cheerful “muy bien” from the seemingly kind and charismatic, gray haired Argentinean taxi driver.
Now, that was instantly registered with all of my sensor registrants. I’m certain that Alex also could feel this man was interested in making small talk, asking, answering, describing and explaining things around us while we were riding in his taxi.
Did I mention that there was a giant language barrier between us and him?
Well, this is where we, as ordinary human beings, unnoticeable “passerby”s in gray coats with bulky backpacks transform into fascinating and remarkable loops of a global chain. We want to make contact with this other person and that’s all it takes, a DESIRE, not  a fear of a language barrier. And suddenly we know where they are from. We know which soccer team is theirs. This guy’s team is Lazarus, he said it smiling while we were passing a huge poster of the Pope and pointing at him.
He also said that he was proud of the new pope.
He asked in some fast language where we are from. He knows that we are Americans from Armenia and that we are enjoying our time in Buenos Aires. We told him all that in another unknown to him and us language.
We learned more stuff from him and about him as we were riding on the large Avenue of Liberador.
He was just as curious about us as we were about him.  This was not one of those courteous and meaningless “how yo doin”s.
We were really getting into this communication.
Why? Because there was the WILL. How? There was the WILL.
This really made me realize that we the people are like those tiny partials on a big circuit board. When the right connection occurs, a little light comes on. If we look at the World as a circuit board from far away, would we see more lights or dark spots on it? Would it look like an abandoned building with only few windows lit or would it be like an overcrowded hotel?
I also thought about the life span of those lights.
We go in and out of taxis, restaurants, stores, supermarkets, office buildings, walk on sidewalks. We interact with many people, but don’t connect with them.
By the end of the day we have almost zero recollection of them. We don’t remember the conversations.
But there is that one waiter, the police officer at the stadium, the toll collector oh the highway with whom we make mutual contact and the little light on the circuit board that’s our World goes on.
We remember this person, what he said, how he smiled, helped without being asked. I am not talking about small talk connection, I am talking about a WILLINGNESS to spark those two loose wires together and based on how strong the energy was, that’s how long that light’s life span will be. In other words how long that memory will last.
Ten minutes drive was all we had with that driver. Chances are we will never run into him in our lifetimes again. Ten minutes!
What are the chances of making a connection with someone on a different continent, 10 hours flight away, at the end of the world, for ten minutes and remembering it for a long time. Some others will last a lifetime.
So it’s completely up to us what we do with those ten minutes when we meet a complete stranger a world away who doesn’t understand a word of our tongue or a neighbor across the street from us.
It’s up to us wether that switch gets turned on to add another minuscule light bulb on the big circuit board called the World or the Universe. It’s not just trying hard in our long term relationships to make a difference  or a lifelong memory. It’s those random ten minutes too.
In a way, we are responsible for that abandoned building or the overcrowded hotel.
I’m not saying that we should harass strangers and forcefully engage them into a conversation with us. But when we see the possibility of a handshake, we should extend our hand out, despite the fact that we will most likely never see this person again, therefor it’s not worth the effort. For that reason alone, for those 10 minutes’s sake we should not loose the opportunity to light that bulb.
No one hates cliches more than I do, but there it goes coming from me.
You can change/charge the world and it will take you ten minutes to do so.

Sent with Writer.