Connections

Connections


The other day as I sat and random thoughts passed through my head from recent evenings I realized that the people I met, and have been meeting do not stick to me as well as when I used to meet people. I do not think it’s because I’m getting older and my brain is aging, I mean common, I’m only 20 lets not get too far ahead of ourselves! Rather I blame it on a lack of connection. A true encounter between two strangers. If all I do is ask a name and try to keep that then it’s going to quickly fade by the next time I see them. How do people remember each other? The easiest way to remember someone is to connect him or her to something else. Many people will always remember the guy that did something crazy at that one part that one night of that one semester, or that one girl who had a bit too much to drink and you watched her comically make a fool of herself or make an insane shot in beer pong. Either way, we remember through connections.

          I love going out, because I love to meet new people, but before I go any further I realize now that I’m meeting people but I am not ever getting to know them. Rarely do people take the time to ask more profound questions. We might scratch the surface a little deeper asking, “What is your major?” or “What kind of job do you have? Or want?” That only tells a little, I’ll give an example: I am a biology major and I want to be a doctor. That tells very little about me, one might infer that I either dream big and/or are fairly educated but that doesn’t really explain anything else. When are we going to start asking bigger questions, such as, “What are you passionate about?” “What is your drive that is propelling you down this path?” or “Are you really doing something you feel passionate for or are you sticking to something you’re good at, or perhaps is convenient for a future comfortable lifestyle?” People who know me will tell you I hate biology. I care very little about evolution, photosynthesis or the hierarchy of the food chain. Granted biology covers a lot more than that, but I am passionate about becoming a medical doctor, not the relationship between a Carbonyl group and a benzene ring when reacted with an unknown reagent. Not very many people ask me “Why?” they may go as far ask what kind of doctor I would like to become or specialize in. These are merely filler questions and do very little justice. Why do you want to be a doctor? Why did you enlist in the military? What about politics intrigues you that much? What pushes you to want to write for the rest of your life? What in business drives you so to want to take business classes? Are these filler majors till you get a job doing something else? Do you have career goal that you one day wish to fulfill with this major? Honestly I can only answer these questions for a small selection of people I know, even the ones I’ve known for many, many moons.


          What along the path stopped us from wanting to know? I ask from the standpoint that we just do not care anymore, and this I infer from the observing that nobody asks these questions, unless it’s one person out of 100. Profound conversations make me happy. Most people, when I bring this up, agree. We want to create this deep connection with each other, yet we rarely do. The times I do, I never forget and every time I see that person, I don’t only see them but I see the person they wish to become and I hold them on a different level of respect due to that.

          I’m going to make it a goal to attempt to deeply connect with at least one person every night that I go out. It is not an attempt at flirting if it’s with a person of the opposite sex; my interest is solely to get to know that person. Not many people know who I actually am and that is not because I chose to hide this knowledge yet I simply never have been asked. Most people are not going to post their dreams and favorite interests on facebook’s “info” tab. So how are we going to find out who loves the same things we do, who enjoys the same activities, unless we go and find out instead of putting it to chance. Some people are more shy than others such as myself, that’s ok, I’m not going to pry if this type of person comes along, after all this is an act of a different level of respect that I want to learn how to create among a mass of people that I’ve never really done before. How can we learn to progress as a whole if we not know the direction or size of each cog piece involved? Every human is different in so many ways yet identical in such a simple view. We all have the power to do unimaginable things, our brain’s potential is off the scale and that power resides in every single baby born as well as every person who lets go of his or her last breath.  

What makes you tick, what makes you do the things you do? We are all unique and I cannot think of anything more interesting than to ask for and hear the infinite possible answers to these rather simple questions. So what are you passionate about? Where do you see yourself 5-10 years down the road, or where do you WISH you could be in this time? Is what you’re in college for truly what you want to do or are you simply trying to go with the mainstream of reality because you’re a little scared and honestly just haven’t found that motive yet? Not every one needs to have a firm grasp on the next 5+ years of their life, it is a very acceptable answer to have zero ideas about what’s going to happen, there is still plenty of other questions that can be asked to create a very unique bond that will be shared with no one other. Most of the time one must ask what a person wishes for in order to find out the desired bit of information that eludes we seek. Sometimes we get so in front of ourselves that we forget or believe that we are directionless and feel completely lost. But our desires, our wishes are little flames that still hold the hope of what our hearts yearn for. Not the cliché wish about owning your own island with unlimited everything, but the dreams that we share with very few people, the dreams that we think would be too embarrassing to tell, and they feel embarrassing because they are foreign to our tongue, we don’t speak them and so others believe that it is not our normal behavior when in reality its more us than they possibly ever may have known.  3/22-3/23/10