Get up to go get coffee.
Sit down.
Try to move the cat. Fail. Turn on the computer anyway.
Start typing (which isn’t the same as writing but sometimes occurs before the coffee has taken effect).
Notice the battery is getting low.
Get up to find computer cord.
Plug in cord. Realize that computer isn’t charging. Jiggle cord. Replug cord. Notice that computer STILL isn’t charging. Get incredibly frustrated because without computer there can't even be typing.
Somewhere power is being created by coal and water and wind. Power surges through cables and is tamed by transformers. Power enters my apartment and waits in an outlet, ready to be used. After I plug the cord into the outlet, I can see the green light glowing at the end of the cord. Power is there! However my computer rejects the power. For reasons of its own (which I have given up trying to understand), it prefers to use its battery. Even though it knows and is telling me that the battery has only 11 minutes left, no, 10, now 9, 8 . . .
Realize that this is a metaphor for a human condition. Denying the good. The Greeks probably had a better name for it, which I don't know.
So I repeat what E.M. Forster said: “Only Connect.”
Connect to the world. Don’t be isolated. You can't make it on your own. Why would you even want to when it's infinitely better to connect?
