A Puzzle of Connections

My first week of work left me with much to consider. Above all else I became aware of my strong desire to connect. I feel it growing. I long to connect. I want to interact.

I began to think I was strange.

I was withering away like a plant without sun while the business world around me seemed to nourish itself on excel spreadsheets, florescent lights, and cubicles. How was I such an anomaly? 

I felt strange until I realized I wasn’t.

One morning as I rode the train, I noticed the driver interacting with his radio the way many men interact with their televisions during football games. He yelled, gestured, complained, and at times nodded in agreement. A desire to connect. When he realized I was paying attention, I became the new radio. He complained to me about delays on the tracks, shared his wisdom of the T system, and emphasized the duty he felt to the passengers of his train.

Before work, I bought fruit from a uniquely clothed vendor. He wore a suit made from fabric filled with prints of watermelons. He joyfully chatted with each customer and displayed his new vendor’s license with pride. A desire to connect.

At dinner on Thursday night I overheard a conversation at the next table. The waitress refilled water glasses and without any prompting began to tell the table about her three kids. A desire to connect.

I began to see it everywhere, a desire to connect.

It’s like a puzzle.

I spend the better part of every day thinking about my own piece. I’ve memorized my own shape; I’m aware of all the ways I am different. I take pride in my individuality.

But, when I am truly engaged and interacting with someone, there is energy. I am shaken from my self-created isolation and forced to remember that I am human, and that is a shared experience.

Connecting with people is like connecting pieces of a puzzle. The pieces are still unique, but they aren’t alone.

I think each of us, in varying degrees, craves connection. As much as we want to feel unique, we also want to feel a part of something. We should. If we fail to recognize all the ways we are similar, we leave too much room to mediate on and build resentment for all the ways we differ.

It’s like the puzzle. What if we only valued the uniqueness of individual puzzle pieces? What if we never spent time recognizing the relations of the pieces? Sure, we still have 1,000 beautiful pieces, but still one shattered whole.

I have a desire to connect and I have decided that that is neither strange nor bad. In fact, I choose to devote more time to truly and wholeheartedly listening. Only then am I immersed in similarities rather than begrudging differences.