Hideo, again.

How it amazes me to be constantly reminded of how small our world is. How mind-blowing it is to know that one life can weave across and thread through the tapestry of so many lives, all over the world.

Today, I received in my email a note from the 6th passer-by from overseas who has bumped into Hideo, who left a comment on a post I had written which he must have found surfing about him online:

"I've just come back from Japan, where I spent two weeks touring, and I was trying to figure out how I could write some nice post about Hideo Asano. I met him one night in Osaka while strolling along the canal; I was feeling a bit miserable and, all of a sudden, this man approaches me and says "Are you a German?". I told him I was not -I'm a Spaniard- and then, as I was reading Hemingway's short stories at the time and he had a copy of Hemingway's poems, we engaged in conversation.

I took him for dinner and then we spent about five hours talking about literature, philosophy, religion, history... I gave him some money, bought him some beer and felt exactly the way you felt, I guess. He seemed to be a great man and it made me so sad to see him homeless and longing for a place to settle and a woman to care for him. It made me really sad when my time to leave came, too.

It's a wonderful thing to know he has left the same mark on some other people all around the world, because this is a memory I'm sure we all will keep for our whole lives.

Thank you for wirting it down and thank you for doing it so beautifully!

Cheers from Madrid!"

It amazes me to realise how a simple elderly man with an open heart can impact the lives of so many random people strewn across the globe, and how small technology has made our world.

So remember, that you are not a digit, a number, or another face, but really, someone who can make an impact on every person you meet along the way. Just like the way Hideo did.

Cheers to you too at Madrid, from Singapore.