In life, connection is what makes life lustrous.
My roommate Gino and I were recently talking about the concept of connection and he enlightened me with his “checklist” of what he expects in terms of relationships with women. Beyond the expected smart, kind, attractive, expressive and so on is what he considers the most important quality – the “wild card.” It’s the ability to truly feel a mind-to-mind connection with someone. It’s when minds, souls and hearts unite, and you feel so captivated by the other person that conversation is compelling and free without judgement, interpretation or confusion as to what the other person means. You feel like you “get” that person, talking will ensue for hours without interruption, and often, when the other person speaks, their words are so aligned with the thoughts in your mind, it’s eerie.
To me, friendships and relationships that embody this atypical, lasting connection are the most important and unique. When they present themselves, they are pre-sent gifts to be cherished. Cherish them by immersing yourself in the moment and allowing yourself to become enthralled in that person’s reality because life will change and people will grow. Weeks, months or years may go by without interacting with this person but when they come back in your life, the connection never ceases to end.
I can count about ten people in my life that I feel this connection with. Growing up, I thought I wanted to have a ton of friends. What I’ve learned is that having less, more meaningful and intimate connections is far more valuable and fulfilling. Moments with them are always memorable and these experiences keep me smiling for weeks, months and years.
Tags: connection, friendship, heart, life, love, mind, psychology, relationships, soul
[...] I can read your mind | Social Networking, Online Communities and …1 hour ago by Amber Rae Lambke On when minds, souls and hearts unite and make life lustrous. [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ryan Proctor. Ryan Proctor said: http://bit.ly/Rt9MV I can read your mind | Social Networking, Online Communities and … http://bit.ly/fzl8J [...]
You are all about the zen blog posts lately… I totally agree with this and I think having those good friends around is really the key to feeling like you’ve having meaningful interaction in your free time. Sharing those memories with your really close friends, and being able to go back and recount past shenanigans, is really another way of building your own community.
The tough part is when your really close friends move away, and you aren’t in close physical proximity. You make an effort to meet up, true, but it’s not quite the same.
Also I am super lucky to be dating someone where I totally have that great mental connection. Agreed that it’s probably the most important thing.
Interesting picture choice… it’s easy to agree with the gist of what you’re saying. I might even poke at Gino’s checklist, and suggest that if the wild card is significant enough, nothing else matters. Even more to my point, I’d like to poke at you (or shove, or wrestle) and ask you if it’s possible to have the kind of blood-link relationship that you allude to with more people in your life. Sure, it doesn’t come as naturally in some cases, but I’d argue that is where the beauty and challenges of relationships in all forms comes to fruition. How do you connect with as many people on a deep level as possible? How do you learn from, teach to, and share experiences with eveyone around you? I’d like to think of the collective human experience and the unity of everyone around me as something collaborative, something special, and hopefully meaningful.
I enjoyed reading your post, and cheers to you reaching out and sharing this with all of us.
My “quality” list comes from an MxPx song: “I’m a sucker for a level headed girl with a pretty smile. She’s got to have ideas, yeah, and she’s got to have style”.
On top of that she’s got to have a job, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t spend 4 hours drinking till blood-shot-eyes-drunk, and she’s got to have a hobby/interest that keeps her going if for some reason she becomes alone in the world.
As for the “less is more concept”, I’ve learned that applies to pretty much a lot of things. I think the idea of being “alone” scares people too much and creates an increase effort to seek out as many relationships as possible. I’m the opposite as I’ve always worked on keeping my circle small. Maybe my close relationship with my siblings spoiled me as I always had someone to talk to.
In the somewhat gross indie film “World’s Greatest Dad”, Robin William’s character is an unnoticed person who suddenly becomes the guy that everyone wants to talk to. There’s a neat quote by the main character: “I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone, it’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people that make you feel all alone”.