What Is Connection, Anyway?

In this global hyper-connected collective that we belong to.

This is Guest Post #2

You can find the #1 guest post titled Operation Pied Piper here¹

_____

About a decade ago, I took a class on how to harness feminine power that lies dormant in all of us—both women and men.

‘Feminine’ is intuitive, rather than action oriented like is counterpart, the masculine.

One word that was said quite often was ‘Connection.’

Such a powerful word.

It can mean so many things.

From connection of our heart to another person’s heart, to our devices’ connection to the nearest wi-fi.

We seek both.

But there is another connection that, in our fast moving world, we barely pay attention to, or are even made aware of. Not even by the media, which supposedly tells us that it is a reflection of ‘society.’

Garima Garg contemplates on what does it mean to be ‘connected’ in a world of instant connectivity and fleeing moments of exuberance that one feels in a connection?

_____

Ms. Garima Garg is a New Delhi based journalist and author. She has a BA in economics from Delhi University, India and an MS in journalism from Columbia University, United States. She writes about culture in our modern technology-driven world at Rasa Journal

Her debut non-fiction book, Heavens and Earth: The Story of Astrology Through Ages and Cultures², was published with Penguin India (2022). The book traces the evolution of astrology as a cultural phenomenon around the world since antiquity.

She is currently working on her second book. Her work has appeared in Hindustan Times, Hindu Business Line, Scroll.in, AFP, Outlook Magazine, Economic Times Magazine, and more.

____

What Is Connection, Anyway?

All of us are a part of a global hyper-connected collective, yet we are also more disconnected from ourselves.

What explains the paradox?

Garima Garg

A little over two decades ago, I found myself in United States for the first time in my life. I had always loved the idea of exploring the world and what lay beyond the boundaries of the city I called home. Not yet a teenager, it was an exciting opportunity to attend a summer camp in Michigan for the shy Indian kid in me. It also happened to coincide with my birthday. With children from around the world, the camp was every child’s dream with loads of summer activities like rock climbing, bonfires, zip-lining and more.

For birthdays, the camp volunteers would put up a goofy show during lunch-times. When mine rolled around, a volunteer wearing an animal face mask went around the dining hall mischievously to find the birthday girl. When he found me, I was told to stand on my chair so that everyone could see me and other volunteers brought an ice-cream sandwich for my cake with a single lit candle perched on it.

It remains a fun memory to recollect all these years later but it also reminds me of something else— if all those miles away, a kid can be made to feel happy on her birthday by complete strangers even though she can’t reach her family and friends back home on call, then that’s what we might mean by connection.

Many years later, I found myself in the country back again. This time, as a grad student in New York City. With friends from different countries with whom I could share meals and jokes as well as strangers who came from countries I had never heard of, couldn’t place on the map, or had negative notions about— all of these connections opened my mind and showed me so many ways of being. To speak to them about their lives, their families, and their life’s work was more edifying than reading scores of books by non-Indian authors.

It was interesting to see what food means to different people with non-Indians enjoying Indian food, Indians enjoying Mexican food, and everyone enjoying New York style pizza slices. It opens the mind to become aware of what hopes other people’s lives revolve around and what struggles their days are enveloped within. From Hispanic immigrants in Queens struggling to make a living and protect their families to affluent American millennials in Manhattan hanging out at Yoga studios after their corporate workdays, it was a humbling study in the length and breath of human life.

I liked going around the city for photography and often found connection through them. For instance, there was a time when I was in Times Square and was taking a photo of men dressed as Batman and Joker only to have them notice me and turn their attention to me. They posed for me, joked with me, and took photos of me. Another time, I set out to photograph the St. Patrick’s Day parade. As I moved in and out of crowds, I had people young and old pose for me spontaneously as they noticed my camera (and me). The fact that they were Irish and I was an Indian was irrelevant. It was all good fun— for them, it was their festival, and for me, it was an adventure. A photo takes a few seconds to manifest and if connections can manifest with them just as swiftly, then that’s kind of a miracle, isn’t it?

It goes without saying that travel and art are great ways of fostering connections.

But once again, what really is a connection?

Today we take our global consciousness for granted. It is no big deal to wear clothes of a foreign brand, eat a foreign cuisine, speak a smattering of a foreign language, or have online “friends” from different countries. There is absolutely nothing strange anymore about knowing more about a foreign culture than one’s local environment or to live anywhere in the world without really having to engage with the local culture in any kind of a meaningful way. We live in the age of hyper-connection where all of us aspire towards similar goals (and aesthetics). We are told it is the golden age of modernity.

Yet, is it really?

The essence of a connection lies in revealing our sameness, despite our differences. That it can happen in a moment just makes it all the more wonderful. But for that reason, it is not something to be chased. Instead, it is like a butterfly which flutters about in its gentle magnificence for us to behold. We cannot hold it or make it captive for then it begins to die.

What we have done with the modern definition of connection is precisely this —in our desire to have more of it. We have lost the essence of connection in exchange for endless doomscrolling and hundreds of online “friends and acquaintances”. We know the world but not ourselves, see the world but not our surroundings, engage with the world but not with our loved ones.

• A paradox of modernity?

• Abundance of external connection and a dearth of an internal connection?

In our desire for connection, we went looking out in the world when it is just as much what takes place inside of us. And having lost the connection with ourselves, what can we really ever connect with outside of ourselves even if the entire world is at our fingertips?

It is a decidedly modern paradox where the abundance of external connection has lead to poverty of internal connection.

Yet, it is upto us to recover our ability to connect because after all, it begins within us. We have to seek connection not just to know and see the foreign but to understand everything that is intrinsically human. Modernity idolises the individual but true connection can only come from recognising that which is universally human. For this, we do not need to travel or learn a new language but to actively find what binds us to the life around us, both human and non-human.

In doing so, we will finally experience the beautiful connections we constantly seek through our digital screens.

NOTE: All the images in this post were generated by Grok on X.com

1.

2. Heavens and Earth: https://www.amazon.in/Heavens-Earth-Astrology-through-Cultures/dp/014345904X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=V3DNJJ13YM43&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.rh84lpm--FETl0GD21H4MjFkr1uMiNT0pc5TP4nLe03GjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.aquocldiCeLVYHAROkIhg4yvhvm9nFWVKn3xFmwgxmM&dib_tag=se&keywords=garima+garg&qid=1748456288&sprefix=garima+garg%2Caps%2C151&sr=8-1