Meaningful Connection

We live in a peculiar age where, despite the illusion of "connectedness", we are less connected on a deeper level. There was a time when society cherished presence - a time when we devoted ourselves to exploring ideas and truly understanding one another. Today, technology - crafted by the brightest minds - has been harnessed to desensitise our core biological drivers. The solutions marketed to us are hollow imitations, devoid of substance. Yet, somewhere within us, there lingers a faint awareness of this lack of soul in the world around us. It explains why what we consume often feels inadequate. Most of us cannot even articulate what we are seeking, and so, alongside this desensitisation, we are offered solutions that are ever more extreme, intense, and grotesque - designed to provoke enough sensation to make us feel something. But this fleeting sense of satisfaction is unsustainable, for it is not rooted in genuine meaningful connection.

To cope, detachment and dissociation become second nature. We protect our souls instead of extending them, deepening our sense of disconnection in the process. We now offer compliments with little sincerity, adhering to societal norms - while fearing that true vulnerability might invite ridicule. Yet, we crave that very vulnerability in our daily lives because the world no longer offers us enough of it. We numb ourselves, suppressing our intuition, while distraction is packaged and sold to us in countless rebranded trends. We chase fabricated illusions of "fulfilment", conjured by those who have never truly experienced it. Everything revolves around efficiency and perfection. We are trained to scatter our attention - juggling multiple tasks, multiple relationships, and multiple responsibilities - so much so that focus has become a luxury. The fleeting natural beauties of the world no longer hold our attention for long before we are once again tethered to our screens.

This is why traditions like Christmas and other wholesome gatherings hold such profound importance. They remind us of those rare genuine moments of focused soulful connection - what we are increasingly at risk of losing in this age of distraction.