Only Connect is the famous epigraph to the novel Howards End by E. M. Forster published in 1910.
I’ve done research which shows the benefits of paying attention to the small stories. What potential can we find in our narratives if we focus on the seemingly abandoned or forgotten aspects? The threads and the charcoal drawings rather than the finished tapestries and the oil paintings. It’s like finding little weeds which, if we don’t shut them out, might solve a problem for us. What about the seemingly insignificant acts of communication?
What can we discover in the in-between spaces – like the borders in our gardens – or, if we come from other countries – between cultures if we listen in? Sometimes the traces seem invisible, but a frayed end – of a thought or of communication can help us reconnect – if we look closely.
In our fast-paced world, we spend a lot of time thinking ahead to futures that may never come to be. When I was a teenager, thinking that we were going to be able to live in space was all the rage. Now it’s immersive technology. Fewer people want to actually meet outside the virtual space it seems. I’m all for digital communication – it’s enabled me to work abroad and have an international career. However, is our dependence on digital threatening to overwhelm our human connections? I seem to spend a lot of time online since the pandemic hit – like most people perhaps.
In E.M. Forster’s 1909 short story The Machine Stops the population has started to live underground with all their bodily and spiritual needs met by a global Machine. Communication is organised by instant messaging and video conferencing. People connect for transactional reasons – e.g. ideas and to get information. It all sounds uncannily familiar. Our dependence on the Internet and instant 24/7 digital connectivity has changed our understanding of human connectivity completely.
Forster’s is a thinned out, machine-oriented world where people live as mere shadows of their ancestors in isolated underground bunkers. People no longer attempt to travel to the earth’s surface to see what is going on or speak to one another. The argument E. M. Forster is making is that it is only through connecting with nature and one another more often and better that human beings can really survive and flourish. It’s like the family of the Schlegels in Forster’s novel Howards End who, perhaps because they live in tune with the seasons, feel that ‘one is certain of nothing but the truth of one’s emotions.’
What Forster was trying to say in these two fictional works was that understanding our own psychology – the way our minds work – is the way to improve our lives and to benefit others: so often, because we are so in thrall to the big picture – the ideal represented by the Machine (or in our age social media) for instance – we sacrifice paying attention to our inner lives and the potential that they hold for us.
I was talking to a friend yesterday who said these memorable words to me: ‘A conversation can be like dancing with god.’
I still find it hard – as I used to spend much of my career working behind a screen, but now I feel the physical benefits of face-to-face. I have solved so many issues that have affected me in the last seven years – from diet to medical issues (I used to have hypothyroidism), to creative problems (I am writing a play) through a consistent effort to connect more and deeper – first with myself, then with others and then the wider world. Sharing a story about yourself and your life is an intensely social act – yes, like a dance.
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