Connections
I went
running a few days' back. Gasp. I know... I broke my record of not
running for the past 6 years. But I actually felt like it. And when I
was running, I started thinking about connections. Yuan fen. That
mysterious force / destiny that brings some people together in
friendships, relations, and what maintains those ties. I've been
wondering about this lately because I have discovered that I cling to
connections that I guess are no longer there. That my perception of
the strength of a connection is perhaps a bit overly exaggerated. I
will still think very often of a person with nostalgic fondness and
maybe send out an email or a call; then, often, I just have to remind
myself of the reality of the situation when the response back lacks the
same mutual care that I'd imagined was still there.
I started
wondering... Does someone have to be physically present to maintain a
real connection? Do you have to constantly live in the presence of
their voice, their three-dimensionality, their certain nearly
undetectable "personal smell," heck - even their unconscious sloughing
off of hormones - to maintain a relationship? If we think of man as a
biological machine - input / process / output in an action - maybe we
do. And perhaps my skeptical, scientific side agrees with this...
Until they can send your personal hormones over the telephone, or make
a Jo-flavored ice cream, I find it hard to believe that a true
connection can truly persist
in -most- peoples' minds without at least the sporadic physical
reminder of their presence.
But
I want to believe it's possible. I think that the answer to this
question depends on whether you believe 1) man is primarily a
biological entity and the soul an illusion, or 2) if you believe that
reality resides in the soul and the physical is only, as Blake said,
the way our soul experiences the current world. If 1), connections
seem fleeting, restrained by maximum physical distances and time. And,
for me, it seems to shed connections in a darker,
Darwinian/evolutionary biology light. Connections are maintained to
secure your own advantage, although this motive may lie deep under the
surface If 2), however, then true connections are souls touching souls,
they are events on the level of essence and each leaves its mark on the
other.
I want to believe the latter is true, but my experience
lately has shown me that the people I really felt that I had a special
connection with now have become distant and far away, both literally
and figuratively. I miss them so much; sometimes, their absence hits
me in the middle of something routine, reminding me of how balanced,
full, and happy I felt in their presence. And how that contrasts to
now. But... I don't thinking the "missing" is mutual, persay. Which
is what got me thinking about all this. Why can others move on and I
can't? Is it because I have a more vivid imagination, and so therefore
can recapture them before my mind's eye better than they can? That
even though they are not really with me right now, I somehow recapture
their presence by replaying their mannerisms in my mind? Is it because
I often value and remember the intellectual exchange I have had with a
person more than their physical presence? That I remember the things
they said and how their thoughts synergized with mine more than they
remember our conversations?
Or. Perhaps it's all those
things. But, in one specific case, it is probably... lack of closure.
Regrets that I wasn't honest about how I felt. Left again with "what
if." I seem to consistently do that, despite telling myself I would
never repeat that mistake again. Perhaps. Or. Maybe it wasn't a
"real" connection, in terms of no. 2. In which case, I don't believe
in no. 2, because that connection felt real -as real as anything has-
to me.
Blahbidiblah.
...Cure song comes to mind.
"I miss you I miss you I miss you so much
But how many times can I walk away and wish 'If only...'
But how many times can I talk this way and wish 'If only...'"
Rightio...
well, on that chipper note, I will end my humanities-major indulgence
and go to bed to return as the typical pre-med tomo... har.
Well, no, let's end with Joni Mitchell:
I remember that time that you told me, you said
"Love is touching souls"
Surely you touched mine
'cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time...
Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
And you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet.
And I could drink a case of you
And I'd still be on my feet...
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