%% > [!summary] Related > ```dataview > LIST > FROM "" > WHERE contains(related, [[]]) OR contains(this.related, file.link) > ``` %% # Connection --- I begin not with my words, but with those of [[Hafiz]]: ![[Admit Something by Hafiz]] We all of us experience "this great pull", to be in connection with others. It's almost ineffable, but it's such a natural joy for us social creatures. With connection, our lives are joyous and meaningful; without it, sad and empty. We connect, as [[Hafiz]] identifies, through [[Love|love]]. Love in our actions, words and thoughts. Love towards all. As [[Hafiz]] said in [["I am in love with every church" by Hafiz|another poem]]: ![["I am in love with every church" by Hafiz]] And again: ![[It Happens All the Time in Heaven by Hafiz]] Somehow I have gone from intending to talk about connection, to talking about love. But really they are the same thing, are they not? Love is the manifestation of connection; connection is the symptom of love. But love in an expansive sense. Love for nature and all its creatures and things. Love for one’s friends as well as one’s lovers. However, connection does not easily translate into love for one’s mere acquaintances in the same way one feels connected to one’s closer friends. We do not naturally possess in our societies the superpower feeling of unequivocal love an awakened monk may feel. Yet at a civil protest one might feel connected to those alongside whom one marches, though not having spoken a word or shared a glance, by what one sees to be a worthy cause, an uprising against injustice. But feel the difference! when one does share a glance with a fellow marcher across the parade. A shared smile, a look of a somehow shared understanding — a look of love, in a sense. A moment of shared connection such as this can be so different in degree from the feeling of connection one has with all the other marchers merrying along that it can almost feel different in kind. And sometimes that Have you ever witnessed in yourself that feeling in a crowd — even one full of friends — that you would give up all their company for the moment just to share it instead with one or two friends in particular. Or that feeling of disappointment when you learn that your hangout with one or two friends is going to be augmented with the presence of a third. Sometimes it does not matter how close you are with the new entrant — you simply want to share space with that other person or persons for the time being. You may even have the feeling of wanting to be with no one but that third on another date. The question is the level of connection, and these are all just different manifestations of that quality. Or imagine that you are off somewhere distant and calling home. In such instances is it not the case that you may speak with your partner for hours without tiring, but fade after 15 minutes with a good friend? Or that you may speak with a family member, but you would rather at that time read the next chapter in your book. For connection takes many forms (though I do not believe there is a risk of these becoming so vast and varied that we are at risk of losing all meaning of the word altogether). For besides connection with other people, there is connection with the world, connection with nature, and also connection with self. And sometimes that looks like reading one’s book quietly, or sitting quietly sipping a tea. This, connection is too. --- %% # Reference ```dataview LIST FROM [[]] OR #connection AND !outgoing([[]]) AND -"Templates" WHERE file.name != this.file.name SORT file.name ASC ``` --- # Archive - %%