This visual is fascinating, Cams. To take it further, I imagine how we're all constructed like this. Humans are also messy and one messy ball of lines colliding with another is truly difficult labor. We crave connection, but we're not always ready to conjoin our maps. The "good place" you speak of is, you're right, a place earned by the labor it takes to let our guard down, open up our borders, dissolve our boundaries, but also provide a safe harbor that acknowledges the mutual vulnerability. Human connection isn't a right so much as a gift. As much as we like to hope it's unconditional, offered freely, it isn't. But at least the strings attached are simply good intentions, good will. If we start there, it's not so bad!
I feel so seen right now! Thank you, Katie. I love the notion that connection is a gift and not a right. It can sometimes feel like we’re all just hard, plastic balls bouncing off each other, safe in our SUVs or with our faces in our screens. But that just makes the moments of real connection all the more valuable I suppose.
You're so welcome!! I've been thinking about connection and community a LOT lately and your ponderings are like breadcrumbs I want to follow! (But yes - the virtual world we live in is both a curse and a blessing!)
And what a coincidence as I read this in chapter 2 of Crime and Punishment this very day:
"Despite his recent pang of desire for human company of any kind, the very first word addressed to him in reality instantly elicited his usual, unpleasant and irritable feeling of disgust towards any stranger who came into contact with him, or showed the slightest wish to do so."
This visual is fascinating, Cams. To take it further, I imagine how we're all constructed like this. Humans are also messy and one messy ball of lines colliding with another is truly difficult labor. We crave connection, but we're not always ready to conjoin our maps. The "good place" you speak of is, you're right, a place earned by the labor it takes to let our guard down, open up our borders, dissolve our boundaries, but also provide a safe harbor that acknowledges the mutual vulnerability. Human connection isn't a right so much as a gift. As much as we like to hope it's unconditional, offered freely, it isn't. But at least the strings attached are simply good intentions, good will. If we start there, it's not so bad!
I feel so seen right now! Thank you, Katie. I love the notion that connection is a gift and not a right. It can sometimes feel like we’re all just hard, plastic balls bouncing off each other, safe in our SUVs or with our faces in our screens. But that just makes the moments of real connection all the more valuable I suppose.
You're so welcome!! I've been thinking about connection and community a LOT lately and your ponderings are like breadcrumbs I want to follow! (But yes - the virtual world we live in is both a curse and a blessing!)
And what a coincidence as I read this in chapter 2 of Crime and Punishment this very day:
"Despite his recent pang of desire for human company of any kind, the very first word addressed to him in reality instantly elicited his usual, unpleasant and irritable feeling of disgust towards any stranger who came into contact with him, or showed the slightest wish to do so."
Get out my head, Dostoevsky!
😂😂😂😂 WEIRD!! Haha! That's incredible!!