diaspora, dispersion, displacement, expatriation, expulsion, extradition, migration, relegation.

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. -Indira Ghandi

I've been lucky to lock eyes lately, which has made me wonder why it is all so rare. On the other side of the spectrum, I've had one of those conversations that is really just two people talking to themselves, while wishing the other would hear.

Maybe it's just me thinking crazy, but there are often moments in my life when I feel like words are nothing close to enough to reach across even the most common ground. I mean, how many times in my life have I caught myself saying "that's not what I meant..." or "I think you may have misunderstood me." If I can count my missed, nearly missed and crashed communications on two hands, there must be hundreds more. Maybe thousands.

And human language puts boundaries on us as it is. Our words accrue meaning as we live, and very few of us find the same meanings anymore. It's bad enough that we can't speak each others' languages. I mean, how am I supposed to understand your concepts, if we don't even share a lexicon? I think that's why I tend to gravitate towards those of you who speak several languages. Just by default, your understanding of the world is exponentially expanded by a multiplicity of experiences and nuanced emotions. If you can't explain shadenfreude in English, maybe you can explain it to me in a mixture of French and Arabic...

What I think is most tragic, though, is that the limits of human language are further compounded by our own disjunction from each other. We have become so self-protective (and sometimes also self-destructive), that we can't take the risk to look for ourselves in each other. Instead, we are too busy thinking of what we're going to say while the other person speaks. What results is verbal volleying, and the only people we engage are ourselves.

And don't get me wrong - I am not preaching about nations and cultures and groups. Today I am not even going there. I am talking about the very real diaspora that occurs between us as individuals: Daily.

Sometimes we're too consumed by life to bother with anything more than what's already climbing on our backs. We drink each other away, we work each other away, and finally, we drive each other away with thoughtlessness. We are simply completely involved in our own perspectives, and we just can't bring ourselves to reach across those barriers. Besides, we have all these protocols, these daily behaviors, these structural MOs that keep us from productive interaction. We never apologize; we never explain. And in today's world, I just don't think we have the luxury of isolating ourselves to such a degree. The world already puts up plenty of boundaries on its own.

Seriously. It disheartens me.

...BUT then, by some Divine intervention or twist of fortuity, we meet. We meet and we see, despite our differences, and then we wonder how we've survived alone for so long. I'm not just talking about love here, I'm talking about friendship too. We see a stranger across a bar, and we are able to somehow see through that tempered green glass that distorts our vision on all the other days. We bump into each other on the street, on the bus, on a plane or on the page. But the important thing, what really matters, is that we lift our eyes and meet each other. It means that you stop looking ahead numbly, and somehow find the courage to turn and face me. And it means that I do the same for you.

Somehow this person that we see for the first time is able to assess us with a clarity that even our best friends can't. It happens. Not very often, but it happens. And you know it when it happens, because you feel like you're talking to yourself. You feel like you are looking at someone who was cut from the very same bolt of cloth, before your respective soul was put in this body, and his was put in that one, way over there. You know, it is similar to the feeling you had, even by yourself, before life got in the way. Do you remember it?

And then I wonder, is it actually rare, this type of instant connection? Or, could it sadly just be the product of us both finally opening our eyes at the same time?

Sometimes I can feel that too, you know? Like we just barely miss something meaningful. Both of our eyes open at just the tragically wrong time, like an arrhythmic heartbeat or two doors slamming. For an instant a flash of likeness passes between us, and then it's gone. Suddenly what we saw is again shrouded by your sadness and my fear, or your ego and mine too. And again, we allow our differences to divide us. And we allow our glances to be transient.

Keep talking to me. Say anything. Just try not to look away.