Chains

CHAIN-LINKS
by
Frigyes Karinthy
(1929, Everything is Different)
We were arguing energetically about whether the world is actually evolving,
headed in a particular direction, or whether the entire universe is just a returning
rhythm's game, a renewal of eternity. "There has to be something of crucial
importance," I said in the middle of debate. "I just don't quite know how to express
it ina new way; I hate repeating myself:'
Let me put it this way: Planet Earth has never been as tiny as it is now. It shrunk relatively speaking of course - due to the quickening pulse of both physical and
verbal communication. This topic has come up before, but we had never framed it
quite this way. We never talked about the fact that anyone on Earth, at my or
anyone's will, can now learn injust a few minutes what I think or do, and what I
want or what I would like to do. If I wanted to convince myself of the above fact:
in couple of days I could be - Hocus pocus! - where I want to be.
Now we live in fairyland. The only slightly disappointing thing about this land is
that it is smaller than the real world has ever been.
Chesterton praised a tiny and intimate, small universe andfound it obtuse to
portray the Cosmos as something very big. I think this idea is peculiar to our age of
transportation. While Chesterton rejected technology and evolution, he was finally
forced to admit that the fairyland he dreamed of could only come about through the
scientific revolution he so vehemently opposed.
Everything returns and renews itself. The difference now is that the rate ofthese
returns has increased, in both space and time, in an unheard-of fashion. Now my
thoughts can circle the globe in minutes. Entire passages of world history are
played out in a couple of years.
Something must result from this chain of thoughts. If only I knew what! (I feel as if
I knew the answer to all this, but I've forgotten what it was or was overcome with
doubt. Maybe I was too closeto the truth. Near the North Pole, they say, the needle
of a compass goes haywire, turning around in circles. It seems as if the same thing
happens 10 our beliefs when we get too close 10 God.)

1

A fascinating game grew out of this discussion. One of us suggested performing
the following experiment to prove that the population of the Earth is closer
together now than they have ever beenbefore. We should select any person from
the 1.5 billion inhabitants of the Earth - anyone, anywhere at all. He bet us that,
using no more than five individuals, one of whom is a personal acquaintance, he
could contact the selected individual using nothing except the network of persona l
acquaintances. For example, "Look, you know Mr. X.Y., please ask him to contact
his friend Mr. Q.Z., whomhe knows, and so forth."
"An interesting idea!" – someone said – "Let's give it a try. How would you contact
Selma Lagerlöf?"1
"Well now, Selma Lagerlöf," the proponent of the game replied, "Nothing could be
easier." And he reeled off a solution in two seconds: "Selma Lagerlöf just won the
Nobel Prize for Literature, so she's bound to know King Gustav of Sweden, since,
by rule, he's the onewho would have handed her the Prize. And it's well known
that King Gustav loves to play tennis and participates in international tennis
tournaments. He has played Mr. Kehrling,2 so they must be acquainted. And as it
happens I myself also know Mr. Kehrling quite well." (The proponent was himself
a good tennis player.) ~AII we needed this time was two out of five links. That's
not surprisingsince it's always easier to find someone who knows a famous or
popular figure than some run-of-the-mill, insignificant person. Come on, give me a
harder one to solve!"
I proposed a more difficult problem: to find a chain of contacts linking myself with
an anonymous riveter at the Ford Motor Company - and I accomplished it in four
steps. The worker knows his foreman, who knows Mr. Ford...