TO CONNECT

< Latin connectĕre (in classical period, cōnectĕre ) to tie, fasten, join together, < con- together + nectĕre to bind, tie, fasten. Compare modern French connecter (not in Cotgrave 1611). The earlier equivalent was French connexer , English connex n.  OED

TO BIND TOGETHER

What does it mean now, in 2023, to connect? To be connected?

How, if we are, are we “bound together”, and to what end?

This is not a pretend question. I do not know the answers to it. It feels heavy, the great difficulty in not being able to answer it is close to painful.

For me trying to answer questions I don’t know how to answer is important, worthwhile, and also very appealing. This lure of wanting to know, of curiosity, of desire. But, as with many desires, this question leads to war, with forces and voices proclaiming and protesting –

“NO, in no way are we connected. Never. That/ they’ve got nothing to do with us. We are too different to be connected, to be bound together. We don’t agree. We don’t like you, them, etc. We are separate. Always have been, always will be, Amen. !!”

“Yes, absolutely, without any doubt, it is very clear that yes, all of us and all of Creation are intimately, deeply, inextricably connected in the very fibers and cells of our beings. Even with our differences, we share our breath with each other. All of us. Always have done, always will do. Amen. !!”

The two armies employ distinct armaments, one whose forces are measurable with numbers, and the other, some combination of partial measurability, but leaning more toward forces that must be experienced from the inside, rather than observed, (without involvement or participation) from the outside.

I am not neutral in any way. NO pretense about that. I am “biased,” to an extreme degree, and leaning achingly, bending over to the side claiming and proclaiming connection; all the while fleeing the high tide of “We are too different to be connected.” And “What or how do they have anything to do with us?”