disconnected

[calimac]

Well, it's happened again: something that's been puzzling me intermittently for decades, whenever it comes up.

Somebody uses the phrase "Only connect," in some context suggesting that they take it as a deeply meaningful personal motto. In this case it occupied an LJ userpic.

And I ask, "What does that actually mean?" By itself it's meaningless (connect what to what? and what else besides connect are you not supposed to do?), and context has never enabled me to make sense of it.

And I get one of two replies. Either I'm referred to the original source of the phrase in E.M. Forster's Howards End, or else to an essay by P.L. Travers that focuses on the phrase.

Here's the Forster paragraph.

"It did not seem so difficult. She need trouble him with no gift of her own. She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his own soul, and in the soul of every man. Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die."

Now, I do not consider myself a particularly stupid person. But I cannot make much sense out of that paragraph. If the thrust is, "Put passion in your prose," then "Only connect" seems a very peculiar and unexpressive way of putting it; nor does that seem to be the thrust of Travers' equally uncommunicative essay, whose theme seems to be an inchoate series of ideas weakly summarizable as "find meaning in life." Well, duh.

I'm missing something somewhere. Tell me in your own words, not Forster's or Travers's: what do you mean by it?

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I did not realize it was "out of context"; I thought it possible that more context would help. I find it quite likely that someone would have found the original quote (in your original post above) sufficient; you indicated that you did not, so I provided more.

Here's the full story: I do not recall ever having heard or read, before this discussion, the quotation "Only connect." I have never read Howards End, nor any other Forster (though I have seen some films from his works). When I read your post, I immediately came up with the meaning that I put forth in my initial comment above. However, before posting the comment, I went looking for some context, to see whether I might be on the right track. I found the context quite easily by Googling. I thought, yes, it appears that it does mean at least something like what I immediately thought of. So I provided the further context. I saw no "fault" at all in what had been offered to you, but you made it clear that you did, so I offered more.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I do not recall ever having heard or read, before this discussion, the quotation "Only connect."

But you wrote, in what I think was your initial comment, "I think that many (most?) people use the phrase more to refer ..." etc. Which implies that you'd seen it used a lot, and if not, you're making perilous assumptions about what many or most people do, and your desire to make games interesting doesn't enter into it.

I saw no "fault" at all in what had been offered to you

You didn't? The absence of the context of an explanation of what the beast and the monk were, the lack of clarity as to whether prose meant "the prosaic part of life" or "writing that is not in verse", did not seem to be even the slightest bit lacking?

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I Googled. I found a lot of people using the phrase. I read some discussions. I drew a conclusion.

When I read the initial quote, I got an idea of what "only connect" meant. I had an inkling of what the other things probably meant. If I could do that, others could. So I saw no fault in it for myself, or for anyone who read it as I did.