Only connect
How can we achieve meaningful engagement?
I will never know what it is to be anyone but myself.
The same is true of you.
We share our separateness. Every one of us is the main character in our own narratives, with everyone else playing a supporting role. And we’re constantly changing in response to each new experience. Sometimes I think I know who I am. And there are other times I honestly have no idea.
And if I can’t find the me in me, what hope do I have of connecting with the you in you?
You may be someone I’ve known for years. You may be someone I will never meet face-to-face. Maybe I will never know your name. The most successful writers and thinkers are still touching other people’s lives long after they are dead.
So how can we make that connection? It is not easy.
We need to be mindful of our own and others’ constantly shifting emotions. We need to sit comfortably with our vulnerabilities and not to be scared by those of others. And we need to recognise that despite it all, other people often have profoundly different in their values and behaviours.
But most of all, we need to listen.
And then, perhaps, will we make that meaningful connection. In the words of E M Foster:
Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its highest. Live in fragments no longer.
The Storyteller on the District Line — №9
Previous instalments: 1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8
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