On Connection

by Kae Tempest

Creativity is the ability to feel wonder and the desire to respond to what we find startling.

Connection is the feeling of landing in the present tense. Fully immersed in whatever occupies you, paying close attention to the details of experience.

Empathy is remembering that everybody has a story. Multiple stories. And remembering to make space to hear someone else’s story before immediately telling your own.

You may feel like the good guy, sure. But how can you be certain? When was the last time you noticed yourself behaving in a way that conflicted with your beliefs? Does it not happen daily that you transgress your own codes?

If we are to come to a better understanding of our behaviour, we need to know ourselves not only as we’d like to be, but in how we actually operate. Who do you perform as when you are with different groups of people?

Numbness is a logical response to the onslaught of the age. In order to be able to survive it with any semblance of sanity, in order to be able to function or even to flourish, numbness is required.

The way we have decided to live on this planet is sinister and strange.

I see that every single person is affected by the violence of existence in different ways, and that people carry their burdens however they can.

When we are fixated on what we can get from an exchange, or how we can benefit, instead of considering what we can offer, we are being exploitative.

When life is the pursuit of status, and status is measured in wealth, we grade the outcomes of our existence by the possessions we accumulate or the goals we can tick off our bucket lists. It’s a poisonous mythology, and even if we feel we don’t subscribe to it, our intentions need careful scrutiny to spot its effects on our deepest drives.

If you allow approval to define you, you will have no choice but to allow disapproval to define you when it comes.

If you need approval to bolster your conviction, it is not conviction, it’s an affectation. And it will melt away under the faintest scrutiny.

It starts by realising you don’t have to be concerned with how you measure up to someone else’s ideas about your output. And even more importantly, you don’t have to be concerned with how you measure up to other people’s successes.

Connection balances numbness. Connection is the first step towards any act of acknowledgement, accountability or responsibility. It offers, whether fleeting or long-lasting, a closeness to all others. It is jubilant. Ecstatic. Without fear.