So Why Are We Doing This?

Why do so many people do this? Why spend valuable time typing words and sending them out into the ether?

We do this, I think, because we have an innate need to connect with others. Whether we're ranting about the latest Astros loss or sharing our most considered opinions on the nature of human consciousness, we "speak" to connect. Would we really take the time to do this if we were sure that no one would ever read what we wrote? I think not, except for those who use their blogs as personal journals. And even then, I think there's a part of us that senses that our words will be read by someone, something, somewhere, in another domain or dimension perhaps. We communicate to connect.

What about you? Why do you do this? What do you most deeply want to happen with the words that you send out? How does it feel when a thought you send out is validated by some response? Doesn't that feel really good on some level, regardless of whether you know the responder or not? How does it feel when your words are challenged or criticized? That feels to me like someone's pulling away from me or shutting a door on me or holding me at a distance, and that doesn't feel good.

It doesn't always even matter if others agree with or validate our words, depending on the degree of emotional attachment we have to the particular words and ideas we expressed. Sometimes we may want others to challenge us or question us, so that we can arrive through that exchange at a deeper degree of truth about whatever it is we're discussing. But what does always matter is that we get a response. What matters is the connection.

So I wonder what would happen if each of us took a moment before writing and remembered that what matters most to us deep down are the connections we form with others. Would that reshape our words in some way? Give it a try...

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Introduction

“We're all connected.”

How many times have you heard, read, or even said that recently? Maybe you've become aware of this truth and have to some degree integrated it into your thinking and living. Maybe you’ve heard or read it, and it seemed like a reasonable statement, but it didn’t affect you much beyond that. Maybe you were exposed to it and just shrugged it off as some nonsensical New Agey thing. Or maybe it’s a completely new concept to you. Two things are certain though: no matter where you are on the spectrum you haven’t heard it for the last time, and you haven’t yet gained full awareness of its impact in your life.

From the moment we arise in the morning to the moment we drift off to sleep, and even in our dreams, connection is a key force in all our lives. Or more specifically, the urge to be, to feel, connected is that key force. Not a moment goes by that most of us aren’t influenced by it in one way or another. Yet most of us also live out our lives seemingly almost completely oblivious to this, acting and reacting in response to the effects of this force without ever seeing or realizing what is truly motivating us. And I believe it's this unconscious reaction that then produces so much of the stress that we end up experiencing throughout our lives. Because living without this awareness is like running blind and deaf through a battlefield. Things push and pull us in all directions, but we often have only the most dull and slight understanding of the true nature of these forces. And so we react to them very ineffectively and childishly much of the time.

How much different then might our lives be if we were better able to understand the true nature of what is driving us?

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