Connect.

Don't we all want to connect?  I mean isn't that the one thing, we, as the human race absolutely positively have in common?

You'd think we could use that to our advantage.

I just saw the movie Her. 

I thought it would re-affirm my feelings about my facebattical.  That I would think about our dependence on our devices for constant stimulation and immediate answers to all our questions.  I thought I would leave the movie and think. Yep.  Good thing I left Facebook for a while.

But no.  After that movie was over (I went to see it alone) I sat in the dark and music of the credits and I thought, first, of Tad.  I thought about my connection to him and the way it feels to be in love with someone in such a way that your bodies are immaterial.  How it feels to connect with someone right down to their soul.  If I were to loose all five senses except the sixth (that I believe we all have--not like we can predict the future or see ghosts--that we can feel people's energy around them and really know them if both are open to that), if I were to loose those senses, I would KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt, if Tad walked into the room with me, that it was HE who was there.  I know the way he feels in the air around me. 

So Her was about love, really. About how we connect with people or we don't connect with people or we start and then stop.  But we all want this connection...every single one of us. 

Today I was visiting the senators and representatives of Wisconsin for work. Lobbying for the rights of people with disabilities in the arenas of long term care, mental health and transportation (among other things) and I noticed that in the appointments where we were all reaching out to one another, no matter whether our political affiliations were the same or different) we had really positive communications.  And the two appointments where the person was closed to us, nothing was accomplished at all.  It was as if nothing was said and nothing was heard  How sad.  My own Representative Evan Goyke, he just spent three weeks going to each and every member of the republican party (not his own party) to connect and talk through issues.  What an amazing thing.  Because even when we're ideologically opposed to something, maybe if we talk long enough, we can agree that we're trying to do something good.

When I was in between appointments, I noticed a staff person in the building dropped a pile of papers and mail.  I smiled at him and knelt down to help gather the things.
"I don't want help." He said in a clipped voice.
"You don't? I asked.
"No."
How closed he was!  And I'm not trying to be critical.  Maybe he was having a bad day or just received hard news...but he was so closed. And I kept thinking, what if he'd smiled back and let me help. And what if we started talking and found a common ground or a shared interest.  What if we became friends or had a relative in common....what a story that could have been. 
"Open your heart!" I wanted to say to him.
But I smiled and walked away.

One quote in the movie Her was this: "Love is just a socially acceptable form of insanity"

What if we just opened ourselves up?  What if we just opened up, all of us, and tried to connect? What if?