Strange loop

Whenever I set down to write something here I am aware that there is a kind of zooming process at work, a subject lens that moves in and out. Sometimes this lens pulls out to take in the Universe, metaphysical questions and the like, while at other times it hovers around some middle scale – discussions of politics or social conflicts. At still other times – as in yesterday’s post – my lens zooms all the way in to discuss something highly personal.

But I’ve noticed a funny thing. The posts that are the most tightly focused, personal and idiosyncratic in scope, are often the ones that receive the greatest response from readers. There seems to be a kind of strange loop at work here, a meeting of polar opposites of scale. The most highly personal issues, the expression of thoughts that I grapple with alone in my heart, often seem to be, paradoxically, the most universal and highly resonant.

Perhaps this is what binds us together most tightly as humans, the quality that allows us to understand and empathize with each other in our respective separate (and often lonely) selves. The more personal things get, and the more deeply we burrow into our own individual hearts, the more universally we forge the really important connections with each other.

A strange loop indeed.

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