#013 - Connection - pt. 1

JUNE 2022

One thing you should know about me is I love infrastructure. If you don't believe me, check out my poem "Interstate," and you can see that love expressed in poetic form. Now, before the inevitable eye roll and shouting of the phrase “Nerd!” Let me explain the reasons why. Without roads, tunnels, and bridges, we would be disconnected. Without trains and airports, we would spend hours or even days traveling to distant lands. When you start to think about the importance of this and how it enables enormous groups of people to connect over vast distances, it is hard not to fall in love with infrastructure. 

From the Mayan and Pueblo roads of ancient America to the Etruscan trade routes carved out of stone by the Romans, infrastructure was important from the dawn of civilization. Could the pyramids be built without the aquatic infrastructure surrounding the Nile or Egyptian desert quarries? Could caravans and nomads be successful without annual migration along ancient routes carved out by wildlife for millennia? 

The year is 2022, and it has been one filled with emotions and new friends—and it is only half over. As I am writing this, the world has moved onward from COVID-19 to a war in Ukraine. It worries me that the state of the US and this planet are hurtling or leaping from one disaster to the next—one war to another. The war on COVID-19 is being replaced with actual war, and worse, a domestic war over human rights. 

So it’s hard to break from that chaos to get into a mindset to sit down and be thoughtful. Sit down and meditate. Sit down and come up with a solution for the future. A future that we will all inherit one day. So, what do we do with this combined human inheritance? Does Christianity hold the solution? Does atheism hold the keys to humanity’s success? Does our future rely more on the reliance on each other rather than some societal structure of religion or non-religion? Do we as humans need to relate and belong to one another so we can solve the world's problems?

So many heavy questions - so little attention spans. 

Our lives are set up for morsels - bite-sized, easy-to-swallow bits of knowledge that feed an unscrupulous and spongiform mind. This is why discernment is as important as surrounding yourself with good people. Using your powers of perception to aid in your discernment. I feel the repetition the more I live life and see the patterns and cycles in my own. The world continues to move forward daily, regardless of whether you want to participate. Society is the construct that binds humanity to this existence, and the society you belong to dictates your successes, failures, and ultimate legacy. Societal influences create lasting civilizations and promote morality, but the downside to all this societal pressure is the sometimes negatives associated with groupthink or single-mindedness. 

This is why infrastructure is important, and connectivity is king in the modern age. Doing business in a disconnected society is difficult and incredibly expensive. Remote logistics costs double to triple compared to easy-to-access places. New York City is a great example of this in the States. Therefore, the success or failure of the individual is based on a blessed or missed connection. Let me phrase it succinctly: If you can’t connect, you can forget about moving forward. Personally, I attempt to connect in small, deep, and meaningful ways that hold power over quantitative connections or connections based on volume and not on substance.

A Bridge Too Far

Idioms are some of my favorite things. An idiom is a colloquial phrase or saying that is repeated often enough to become a common phrase or saying to describe situations. In speech, humans use idioms when trying to convey deep meanings or illustrate complex topics without using fancy words. I love words, but a good turn of phrase or kitschy saying can illustrate with words a photograph’s worth of information in a short time. So, the efficiency of idioms should support the idea of them being useful in everyday conversations! 

However, there is always a downside to which to look out! Idioms tend to only connect with people in the same region as the idiom originates. It is hard to know what a June bug is when it may be called something entirely different in another part of the world. Idioms are also hard to translate as some languages lack the metaphorical connotations and subtext that others do.

There is a funny scene from the animated show Archer where the eponymous character has difficulty communicating with Indonesian pirates because of his continued use of idioms. Despite his translator's continued objection that his idioms will not translate well in the native language, Archer cannot grasp the concept and can’t help using these hard-to-translate colloquial adages, much to the viewer's amusement. Similarly, these are an almost certain, ubiquitous, and unquestionably part of our everyday lives, much like our favorite brand logo. 

These adages provide connection in unique, funny, and oftentimes memorable ways. There are countless examples from cultures worldwide, and I could list the numerous examples, but language becomes a point of disconnect when we think of connection. In these situations, nonverbal clues become the only way to tell whether you are being understood. I’ve written before about my appreciation of being able to tell whether or not a person is lying or uncomfortable just by reading their facial expressions. True that some people have what I will refer to euphemistically as resting bossy faces, but when excited, angry, annoyed, or nervous, humans cannot help these involuntary microexpressions. 

So, when applied to connection, we can see that these are part of how we communicate and connect. If we cannot connect over language or expressions, another connection point could be food or a culturally appropriate sharing of an experience. In unnatural environments, these cultural icebreakers can go a long way when connecting and smoking the peace pipe to (use an idiom) build bridges. And it should come as no surprise that I enjoy and encourage others to try these unique and often life molding and enlightening pastimes. Perhaps in America, baseball would be a good example of something that epitomizes a cultural icebreaker and is a safe pastime, too. American theme parks, too. A trip to your local large regional big box chain store with a colorful crowd for trained veterans of foreign culture. 

Societal and cultural norms can also connect or disconnect. Despite the social norms, when an outsider comes into a society, respect or rapport is built by understanding these socially accepted and, most times, unwritten rules. The idiom "When in Rome" applies here. Likewise, it is too great detriment when these are unknowingly broken, and you find yourself in the Roman Coliseum.

Are you one of those people who find themselves in this detrimental role? Because I do, sometimes. So, how can we build a connection in a virtually connected world without being the awkward fat polar bear in a social situation? How can we break the ice without drowning the surrounding participants in an icy deluge? How do we collectively connect well? Well, by building bridges and by being better people. Also, by realizing when we’ve gone a bridge too far, which is also the title of a great Richard Attenborough film. 

Conversational Polar Bears

I was in Ojai Valley, California, remarking on another beautiful resort at which I had the pleasure of staying. This resort was known for its orange sunsets and desert foliage and was also one of the coolest outdoor shows I had worked on. The event itself was attended by a group of ultra-wealthy couples who were raising money for one thing - Bible translation. I won’t go into details of the attendees. Still, tens of millions of dollars were raised for this worthy cause because I had no idea this was an important endeavor. The whole experience opened my eyes, and as an American, this eye-opening is a recurring theme. Like Jodie Foster in that movie Contact, I had no idea. It’s funny how these sometimes random placements of nouns, such as the people, places, and things in your life, yield such results. It's an epic story about that later.

I found myself rubbing elbows and schmoozing (to use two more idioms) with an array of wealthy Christians and, in an attempt to build connection, had amazing conversations about this particular cause for which they seemed to all be passionate. It seemed to boil down to the point of people connecting in something called a heart language or their native tongue. It is hard to believe that something as simple as language or, in this case, translation could cause a disconnect with something as holy as the Bible. It’s God’s word; should it not be universal? But then I am arguably driven by my American exceptionalism and the fact in my American mind that English is the only and best language to communicate or in which to build a connection with God.

Jokingly, God’s language is English, or so most passionate Tea Party patriots believe. To be clear, I am not one of these, and this is not a political blog. I even questioned why a sign language interpretation of the Bible would be important, but to a person who has never heard an audible word, spoken words are as foreign as written words on a page. It changed my perspective.

It turns out that this connection to God that Christianity is all about is far more meaningful when placed in your cultural perspective or language. The Bible translation movement is working around the clock to accomplish this goal—jokingly for me—to bring Jesus back sooner. But if Bible translators work tirelessly towards this one goal, what are others doing to build a connection? I promise I will get to Christian connectivity later on—I just don’t want to rush the Jesus juke. Back to Ojai, though, and traveling.  

While doing this event, I ended up running into some familiar faces from my hometown in Atlanta, and when traveling, it is always refreshing and unexpected. This time was especially notable because I had never hung out with or encountered this group of people anywhere except in the city and at church. It actually gave a great opportunity for new connection with people who I had never worked with outside of the once a week visit to my local church. And before you say, Taylor, I know where you’re going, I am not going to talk about the dichotomous relationships between Christians on Sunday and Christians every other day of the week. However, the way my mind works and the synapses in my brain connecting to points like lines on a connect-the-dots puzzle can’t help but think of a line from a play, movie, or musical. 

This one comes from the classic play written by one of my favorite playwrights - Oscar Wilde, and I probably should confess the only one of his plays I know.

If I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner.

In The Importance of Being Earnest, the titular character tries to explain to his love Gwendolyn why he is Earnest in the city but Jack in the country. This is after Gwendolyn discovers a locket inscribed with another woman’s name, which I believe was to her devoted Jack. All this because Gwendolyn could only love a man named Earnest. The story plays out in a way that only the great wordsmith Wilde could convey in his dialogue, with Jack trying to become Earnest to win the love of Gwendolyn. 

But isn’t this what Christians do in public settings? I know I am guilty of this. It is important to be earnest in proving our Christ-centered beliefs to those around us, but if this is not genuine and earnest, then we really are being Jacks in the country, are we not? I strive for realism in my day-to-day encounters, something that is lost when trying to build connections. Something that is oftentimes misinterpreted to the point of being fake, but if you are naturally good at talking to people and connecting, would you not put aside your real prickly self in pursuit of such? So, am I justifying this as a good thing? 

There are many questions again, but let's return to Ojai. I met these people for the first time, for real. The connection is important. It's a real connection, and the story's point is at an event trying to connect the world with the Bible - I connect with this group of people for the first time. It backfires on me and has been a mystery in my life ever since. The experience and the aftermath are both something that seem uneventful in reflection, but perhaps the story becomes the downside of a missed connection.

But I'll save that for pt. 2.