The world too often feels like an unsolvable jigsaw, many of its pieces stolen or vandalized. But there have been a few occasions in the last few months when I’ve felt almost as if I can peer over an unobservable horizon, at a world where the interlocking pieces have come together for a moment- where the disparate parts exist in unlikely harmony.

It’s an illusion, of course, but it can be a powerful one. It tends to happen when I’m in isolated, fairly wild places. It can only happen when there are no people nearby to disturb that equilibrium. It’s a quietly intense place. It’s the certainty- however brief- that there is a world that makes cosmic sense, and the only disruptions to that finished jigsaw are people- shallow creatures scuttling all over the world.

To me, it’s also a signpost to the idea that we can be a part of this, if we forsake pointless connectedness and live in equilibrium.

People (except those few who profit from the system, perched at the top of the pyramid and society’s food chain) are deeply unhappy and angry about the world we inhabit- the world our paymasters created. No matter our views on political, theological, and social matters, we are- for the most part- desperately sad. Why? Because humans were not meant to be this way.

That is our unqualified “achievement” – we have successfully enslaved ourselves.

Isolation, on the other hand, always seems to get a bad press. Personally, I have never felt so isolated as during the days when I had a “proper job” and had to put myself through 8 hours in an office 5 days a week- either working, or finding ways to pretend to work when there wasn’t actually enough (which was in fact more stressful), and forcing myself to engage in pointless small talk with colleagues. One of the most fascinating (in an awful way) of human traits is how people in offices feel they have to make small talk and give the appearance of actually being interested in their colleagues. (When I kept responding to every “What did you get up at the weekend?” with “I did some reading” the level of small talk I had to endure did go down somewhat…)

The curse of full-on connectedness (and especially social media, which surely has to be one of humankind’s most horrific inventions- a Pandora’s box with no lid) is that the natural tendency of people to “stick with their own” has become far more acute, to the point that people have moved into polarized, often extreme groups and associations that in many cases never intersect with others- or if they do, only with those that share almost all the same set of “values”.

Meanwhile, the more time I spend away from the connected world, the more I realise that most connections are wholly unnecessary. And little by little, I’m beginning to feel less like a slave and more like a part of something far bigger than myself- bigger, even, than humanity. Which, ironically, somehow makes me feel more connected. Only not to people.