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Saturday 28 July 2012

connections


How difficult sometimes
to make the right connections
to solve a puzzle or a problem
understand a work of art
or get from A to B on train
or bus, to telephone for information
that only some remote call centre has.

So easy once,
just lifting the receiver,
waiting for the operator's voice
asking which connection you required.
Number twelve, you'd say,
and hear her voice again, Ah,
Mrs Bradfield in the High Street -
often not at home this time of day...


And all connections came that easily, back then.
The transport ones for instance:
we'd step from one into the next -
and always home by tea.

These days the web connects us
to a host of folk we only think we know
and to a thousand treasure caves
of source, resource and reference.

but behind the changing scenes of life's connections
are a million billion constant ones
on which the rest depend,
connections that we make and break unknowingly -
and certainly not knowing how or why -
each moment of our lives.
Their very number is beyond
all our conceiving.
We make and break them in the brain. They make it
possible for us to breathe,
to eat, walk, talk and think -
and build connections on the web
and in our daily lives.
...............................................
Linking to Brian Miller's theme Thursday of the same title.

14 comments:

Brian Miller said...

smiles...i think our connections are much more complex these days surely...but more widely arrayed as well...i def would not know most people i do these days without the web connecting us....cool piece on connections sir...

Anonymous said...

Terrible when the internal ones break down! Your work points out crazy symmetry. k.

Tabor said...

The Brits always make connections seem so cozy. American connections to me are high energy...here today and gone tomorrow.

Daydreamertoo said...

I read somewhere online that we are not given as much free information anymore as we were a few years ago. Those invisible powers that be (it seems) are now able to influence what web pages we can see by our choices of where we surf and 'they' select from that which web pages they make available to us. I've had so many web address's of the blogs I read, automatically changed from .com to .ca (Canada) so that if the USA brings in all of the new internet rules they can't block us from still seeing the sites we visit. Big brother is upon us, big time.
Some of the connections we make are so wonderful since the invention of the internet but, in truth, they are all virtual, unless we get to meet them in real life. We as a species are rapidly changing and we are voluntarily allowing the technology we create to also control us like puppets. Amazing.
Another very thought provoking read Dave. I hope you don't mind when I tell you my thoughts.

izzy said...

Oh I love this especially the beginning! It was so nice and easy to get assistance- and pleasant!
thanks for visiting.

Scarlet said...

It is difficult to make the right connections...even now it is more complex. But the internet makes it easier and challenging. I do like the last stanza...making and breaking them in our brain ~

Lovely thoughts Dave ~

chazinator said...

This is very deep Dave. It's especially profound, given the assumption by many that we somehow make decisions in a vacuum or that our lives are somehow disconnected to anything else or anybody.

ds said...

Yes, it is easier to make a connection, but so much harder to actually connect, today. We make and break them in our brains. True.
Thank you.

haricot said...

Hi, Dave
Yesterday I fell down unconsciously on a platform of a train on my way to home. No connection with before and after of the few minutes. I think about our life and surroundings reading your lines.

Mary said...

I agree with ds. Easy to make connections, but how long do they last or how deep are they really? If Internet would go down, hmm would connections disappear right along with it?

kaykuala said...

You always come away with a lot of originality Dave! Communications these days have been better facilitated but we are mere names seemingly connected but still strangers. Very true!


Hank

Dave King said...

Brian
More widely arrayed - yes, an important dictinction certainly. Thanks for.

manicddaily
I agree. The breaking down of the internal ones I left as being an issue in its own right. The "breaking" of which I wrote had to do with unlearning. In the learning of a new skill it may be necessary to break old habits (connections).

Tabor
Interesting comparison. Hadn't occurred to me, must give it some thought.

Daydreamertoo
Absolutely I don't mind. Your thoughts on this make fascinating reading. I'd no idea about some of the issues that you raise. Big Brother indeed, but a very sophisticated Big Brother using our own technology against us is how I view it. My thanks for this, I am going to have to research it a bit more. I do believe your comments contain more meat than my post.

Izzy
And thanks for the feedbakck

Heaven
Thank you so much for this comment.

chazinator
Good point. Yes, I'm sure this is absolutely so. People do often assume that and do not realize how one decision is connected to and affects another.

ds
You're right, of course: it's both easier and harder to make the necesary connections.

haricot
That must have been most traumatic for you. So sorry to hear that, but it is amazing how these experinces can add to or change our thinking. Are you having yourself checked out. Hope you get not repercussions.

Mary
Good question. Interestingly, deep connections are not always the most useful. Thinking of those in the brain, for example, they are in fact very tenuous, the "contact" points not making actual contact at all. Just lining up close enough for a spark to jumpacross the gap. That must be a metaphor for something, I am sure!

Hank
I think you putthat very clearly, telling it as it is. Thanks.

Mrsupole said...

I remember when we had party phone lines and one had to wait until the other party got off the line before you could make your call. Or that to call "long distance" was only meant for an emergency. The sad thing to me about all this technology is that many of the young people of today seem to find it hard to communicate face to face with other humans and this does interfere with our connections developing in the brains of these young people. Plus their spelling, sentence structure, and punctuation is atrocious. I even find myself depending upon spell check to catch my misspellings of words.

Does this make our life easier or does it make it more complicated in that someday we will all just be in a room somewhere connected up to a machine and never interacting with others. I think there is a movie about this out there. And the sad thing is that so many movies that we used to think of as just fantasy and science fiction have been surpassed and almost seem blase when we watch them today.

They have commericals for a car that shows the older adults getting out there in this car and enjoying life with others while showing their children at home with their mechanical toys, all alone. I do hope that people see the value of those commercials and make changes in their lives, and I do not mean by buying the vehcile.

I think I need to get out more often too.

Thanks for joining us this week for our connections Theme Thursday, it was a great connection piece.

God bless.

A Cuban In London said...

A very thoughtful piece about how, below all those technological advances, there's always the human need to connect with one another in a basic and simple way.

Many thanks.

Greetings from London.