The Connection conundrum

Everybody wants connection and everybody needs separateness.

Esther Perel

 

I saw this sentence yesterday in a Facebook ad for some kind of masterclass subscription. (Esther Perel is a prominent American psychotherapist and relationships expert, born in Belgium, the child of holocaust survivors.) These words spoke to me because they align with my experience. I believe this is a difficult truth. The connection part is more natural for me, while the separateness takes more effort and resolve. 

As beings we humans are uncomfortably binary. We naturally tend to think in blacks and whites, not greys. It’s perfectly possible for opposites to co-exist. When we are conscious of that we think with more nuance and treat complex things with the complexity of thinking they merit. 

Something new under the sun: Creativity & Connections (quotation)

“Good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.”

― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

What’s most of interest in this quote is the two unrelated ideas coming together to make a great new idea. Connection is the beating heart of creativity. It relates directly to the André Breton quotation at the bottom of this very early post from Simple Pleasures Part 4.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)