Thursday, July 27, 2006

On Connection

Still and all, why bother? Here's my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone. --Vonnegut
[T]here is this existential loneliness in the real world. I don't know what you're thinking or what it's like inside you and you don't know what it's like inside me. In fiction I think we can leap over that wall itself in a certain way. --David Foster Wallace


Vonnegut and DFW (one of my favorites, btw) are writing about writing, but it's true about relationships as well. To feel like another human being gets me and thinks like me and cares about many of the same things I do -- it's so rare, and it's exhilarating when it happens.

4 Comments:

At 3:08 AM, Blogger CyberKitten said...

Each man is an island, enitire unto itself...

It is always nice to find a kindred spirit isn't it...?

 
At 11:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Neruda talks about this often: "[T]here is this existential loneliness in the real world. I don't know what you're thinking or what it's like inside you and you don't know what it's like inside me."

It's such a sad concept. Kind of cool when you find ways to break through that sort of existence and make connections with people.

 
At 11:06 AM, Blogger Jewish Atheist said...

CK: It sure is.


Marina: Yeah, it is sad. But maybe it's part of what makes fiction, friendship, and love so beautiful. I've always found the bittersweet more beautiful than the treacly.


Just Me:

Thanks. :-) I've had you on my other blogroll for a while. I need to figure out what I want to do with one on this blog, I guess.

 
At 9:29 AM, Blogger Madox23 said...

I think E.M. Forster said it best when he wrote “Only Connect” it is the frontispiece of “ Howards End” The novel is an examination on human relations and the state of connectedness between them.

 

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