Connection
Nov 2nd, 2008 by spaceagesage
A lovely, warming thought from Brian Andreas:
Connection
there came a moment in the middle of the song when he suddenly felt every heartbeat in the room & after that he never forgot he was part of something much bigger
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These words help reveal the online world I frequent. Many experts say it is all about the conversation or jumping on the social media bandwagon, but it’s the connection I value. You know that moment, yes — when something clicks in your heart and mind as the words or images on the screen suddenly make you care about something more than yourself or you see something inside yourself that changes life in varying degrees?
How do you make those connections? Once made, how do those connections change you?
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Photo credit: speech path girl
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Interestingly, I struggle with disconnecting from the online community. I am going to be very honest here. It’s so much easier dealing with people online than in the real world, eh? You can get what you want, or need, from the online world, and ignore the rest. Not so true about flesh and blood human beings. I LOVE the connection found in the online community, but I think there is a very fine line that needs to be walked.
BTW, just bought The Complete Artist’s Way (all 3 books in 1). I am devouring it.
Dear Urban Panther,
I’ve always appreciated your comments and honesty. There is a great deal of convenience with the online world in the sense of getting a fix of insight, of connection, of knowledge, of interaction, or of feeling a being a part of something and then moving to the next fix, but offline interactions require much more of who and what we are to make them work.
So happy you are enjoying the Artist’s Way — I’ve just read the one At Work, so let me know how the others are!
Hi Lori: What a beautiful phrase about connecting. I don’t think that I connect with everyone whose blogs I visit, but there are people whose personalities seem to filter even through the computer and you feel as if you know them, even though you’ve never met them in person.
Hi Lori – I’m only new to the online world of connection this year, so I have yet to see how connection pans out, but I am suspecting that whatever out issues are in the outside world, they will filter into our online world, after a honeymoon period.
So if we tend to feel left out, not understood, inconvenienced or whatever – those things will start happening online after a while. And if we tend to find connection – we will experience that online, too.
Just some thoughts from a relative newbie.
For me a good conversation is connecting. I don’t see that much deep conversation on the web, but it sometimes happens.
Hi Lori. The connections I feel just open me up to more possibilities and perspectives. Even through reading posts on similar topics, I see different readers’ takes on different ideas
@ Robin, that was a brilliant comment!
Hi Marelisa,
Blog writers resonate differently with different readers so it’s fun to find the ones who resonate the most.
Hi Robin,
It is amazing to find how much of who and what we are comes through online!
Hi Jean,
Conversations certainly can be connecting, but sometimes a photo, a beautifully written sentence, or a wonderfully applied metaphor creates connection for me, too.
Hi Davina,
Seeing how other people approach a subject, problem, or situation widens my worldview, too.
Lori,
I don’t think of conversations as just words. In face-to-face conversations the nonverbal is often even more important than the verbal. Pictures help a lot to make up for the lack of nonverbal online, and, as you say, so does the way something is written. For me personal stories are especially powerful. One of the fun things about blogging for me is all of my own personal stories that come drifting back to my awareness. I’m hoping my own posts does that for others.
Great topic! Thanks. 🙂
Hi Jean,
Personal stories are indeed powerful. They often help bulleted-lists of advice make far more sense because the reader sees how following (or not following) that advice worked out.