The Broken Gift, Connection

I awoke this morning w/ a full thought, a question actually. Yes, I know full thoughts before coffee are a rarity for most people.

Why would any of us want to give a broken gift?

For that matter, why would any of us want to receive a broken gift?

Heck folks, as much as I love yard sales and thrift stores I still (on most occasions) wouldn’t buy something that doesn’t work and I damned sure wouldn’t get a gift for someone that didn’t work either (unless of course that’s what they specifically ask for (more on that in a minute).

Seriously, we (well most of us anyway) wouldn’t go out and purchase a gift that was missing one of its most important parts. No, we would attempt to give the best, most functional, most right for that person, gift that we could possibly give w/ the intent of seeing that person smile and be filled w/ appreciation. Yet, each day we ALL attempt to give a broken gift (one that we have indeed purchased w/ our hardships and suffering) to the people around us; the gift of ME.

Yes, you read that right. Each day every one of us attempts to give of ourselves to others around us in some way yet, are we not all broken in some way too? Each of us has our foibles and idiosyncrasies that don’t quite look like the gift we would have purchased had we had the choice or taken the time to search it out. The sad fact is that most of us actually settle for that…that broken gift given/received.

As I have considered this reoccurring thought of “Why would any of us want to give a broken gift?” I think I may have figured out the answer.

Connection Completes Us

We want (often need) people to accept us (it tends to acknowledge our existence in some validating way); to accept the broken gift we present daily. It’s like different pieces of the puzzle. When we connect w/ another we tend to feel like we fit; like maybe we aren’t so much the broken gift after all. Connection completes us. It helps us to put together the broken bits of our soul.

SCIENCE!

There is a recent stirring in the world of science theorizing that our origins were not single cell after all. The concept is that we actually evolved from multi-cell ooze rather than single cell; that the initial primordial sludge was actually a single organism of billions of cells requiring the connection and interdependence of each of the other cells to thrive. Kinda gives the whole “Let US create man in OUR own image” a completely different twist doesn’t it?

So it would go w/o saying if this theory of origin has any merit that we require connection w/ the greater organism (the Divine, our earth, and everything on it including the people around us) to thrive in life.

You Complete Me

We’ve all heard it before in poetic musings, most types of music and every little love-in we’ve ever witnessed; “You complete me”, “You’re my better half”, “I would be nowhere w/o you”…yadda yadda yadda ad nauseum . Yet perhaps there is actually some truth to this. Most of us walk around w/ some level of the proverbial “empty space” inside. Religion teaches us to fill that space up w/ “God”. New Age concepts teach us to fill up that empty space w/ love (for others and for ones self). But, perhaps that empty space is simply a lack of connection, finding the other pieces, or recognizing our origin of interdependency.

So back to the idea that someone might actually want to receive a broken gift.

It is said (presumably by the other bard, Marlowe within the context of Dr Faustus) “Misery Loves Company” and (again presumably) we are all broken in some way. Most people have a need to help others; to be of service in some way to others in an attempt to satisfy the instinctual urge to nurture. I tend to think the question of “Why Are We Here?” is likely answered w/ the ideology that we are meant to be of service in some way to our fellows. Perhaps the old adage rings true herein…”Tis better to give than receive” (allegedly stated by Christ at some point, purview = Paul the Apostle in Acts 20:35).

So in the giving of ourselves (of our own proverbial broken gift) supposedly we receive positive outcome in some way; I can honestly attest to the fact of this. I give of myself much and yes I do actually get quite a bit of positive energy back from the doing of it.

Perhaps it’s not so much the misery that loves company as much as the suffering soul that receives relief of that suffering by participating in life w/ another suffering (and likely broken) soul. It’s the exchanging of our own broken “gifts” w/ another that creates the connection that we all seek on some level. 

The healing, the fitting of the puzzle pieces if you will, begins and continues w/ that connection.

Connecting the Dragonz broken heart one puzzle piece at a time...