The Fabric of Human Connection: Being and Becoming
Note - This piece of writing is composed of protean thoughts—ideas in motion that I have sought to weave together, knowing they remain unfinished and ever evolving. In sharing them, I hope to invite further encounter and conversation with those who feel drawn to engage, trusting that meaning itself is not fixed but continually shaped in relationship. Just as we come into being through connection, these ideas, too, take their fullest form not in isolation but in dialogue.
To be human is to be in relation. There is no self without the other, no identity outside of the contexts that shape and reshape us. The quality of our lives depends not on what we accumulate but on how we encounter the world and those around us—whether we engage in ways that enliven, transform, and attune us to something beyond ourselves. And yet, in so many ways, modern life seems structured to disrupt these encounters, pushing us toward alienation, fragmentation, and an endless pursuit of optimization rather than presence. The challenge is not simply to resist this movement but to learn how to live in ways that allow for deeper connection—where we are not only seen but also moved, where we do not simply act upon the world but also participate in a continuous exchange, shaping and being shaped in return.
Human beings do not exist in isolation; we are bound to one another in an ongoing process of unfolding and shaping ourselves. This is not incidental to who we are—it is who we are. Identity is not a possession but a process, an unfolding shaped through relationship—by the people, objects, histories, and ideas that form our world. The way we see, speak, move, and even think is not entirely our own; it emerges through an intricate interplay of genetic inheritance, cultural memory, and the relational, environmental, and structural forces that shape us. Even the way we conceive of ourselves—as individuals with unique desires and aspirations—is shaped by a broader moral and social space that gives meaning to those desires. But this interconnection is not always felt as a source of vitality. When relationships become instrumentalized, when the world around us feels rigid or unresponsive, when our interactions become transactional rather than transformative, we experience something deeper than frustration—we experience alienation.
Alienation is not merely a feeling; it is a state of being. It is what happens when the vibrancy of our relationship to the world is lost, when the structures that surround us condition us to move faster, produce more, achieve endlessly, yet rarely pause to listen, to respond, or to engage with what is alive. It is the sensation of speaking but not being heard, of looking but not truly seeing, of moving through life but never quite arriving. It is the condition of acceleration, where we are compelled to run just to stay in place, always reaching toward something that recedes as soon as it is grasped. In this state, even our relationships become muted—we may be surrounded by others, yet still feel profoundly alone.
But if alienation is marked by severance, then its antidote lies in resonance—the ability to be affected by the world and to respond to it in turn. A life well-lived is not one of endless accumulation but of meaningful engagement, where we do not simply pass through experiences but inhabit them, where we allow ourselves to be changed. Resonance is the opposite of mastery; it requires letting go of control, surrendering to the possibility of encounter, and recognizing that life is not something to be conquered but something to be engaged with and transformed by. It is found in the moments when we are moved—by music, by art, by love, by conversation. It is what happens when we read a passage that suddenly clarifies something we have always felt but never articulated, or when a stranger’s kindness unexpectedly breaks through the weight of a difficult day. It is the experience of standing before something—an idea, a person, a song, a work of art—and realizing that it is speaking to us, that it demands something of us, that we are no longer exactly who we were before.
Yet resonance is fragile. It cannot be forced, and it cannot be sustained without care. If we seek only to optimize, to extract, or to use relationships for our own ends, we flatten the possibility of true encounter. This is the distinction between encountering someone as a whole person—complex, autonomous, and irreducible—versus seeing them only in relation to what they can offer or fulfill for us. True encounter requires risk—the willingness to be changed by another, to allow for unpredictability, to resist the urge to categorize and contain.
But for these encounters to happen, space must be preserved. Just as neurons do not directly touch but communicate across synaptic gaps, transmitting the signals that make thought, movement, and feeling possible, human connection relies on the presence of space—an openness that allows for both differentiation and encounter. If everything collapsed into everything else, if self and other were indistinguishable, there would be no relationship, only fusion or erasure. It is in the space in-between—where recognition and response unfold—that relationships come alive and live.
Boundaries are the conditions for resonance, not rigid walls but permeable membranes—like the structure of a living cell—allowing for exchange while preserving the distinctiveness that makes true engagement possible. Just as our ability to understand the world—our sense of continuity, time, and meaning—requires some distance from what we observe, our relationships require space to hold and recognize each other. When we collapse ourselves into another, we lose the continuity of self that allows for recognition and response. If we don’t understand what’s going on between the lines, we can’t translate the lines. A relationship without boundaries is not intimacy but enmeshment, and in enmeshment, there is no room for real seeing, only projection. Boundaries are what enable presence—not as separation, but as the structured space where true encounter can occur.
In many ways, parenting offers the most visceral experience of this tension. To raise a child is to witness oneself reflected back in ways that are at once familiar and utterly foreign. We long for our children to recognize us, to affirm us, to shoulder our unfinished dreams, and to carry something of us forward. And yet, they are not us; they are always beyond us, always becoming something we cannot fully grasp. The struggle of parenthood, and of all deep relationships, is learning to love without possessing, to guide without controlling, to hold without constraining. The moments of greatest pain often arise when the longing for continuity collides with the inevitability of difference—when the child we imagined does not align with the child who is. And yet, if we can embrace the tension rather than resist it, if we can see love not as making another in our image but as bearing witness to their unfolding, then being in relationship becomes something richer than mere reflection.
This is true beyond parenthood. Every relationship—whether with a child, a partner, a friend, or even an idea—requires us to navigate the space between recognition and difference, between longing and letting go. There is no formula for how to do this well. But we know, intuitively and viscerally, when it is happening. We feel it when a conversation becomes more than an exchange of words, when something shifts in the air between us, when we step outside of ourselves long enough to be truly present with another. We also know when it is absent—when our interactions feel perfunctory, when our words are met with silence, when we are in a room full of people yet feel unseen.
To live relationally is not to resolve tension but to remain open to it—to resist the pull toward isolation and control and to keep reaching for connection even when it feels uncertain. Meaning is not a solitary creation; it emerges in the space between us, in the fragile, unpredictable process of encounter—of being met, of missing, of trying again. When we truly meet another, when we feel the world resonate within us, when understanding bridges the space between us, something real takes shape. And that, more than anything else, is what makes life worth living.
Note on Influences
The ideas in this piece are shaped by my lived experience in relationship—as a therapist, husband, father, brother, son, friend, godson, colleague, and through my own long-standing therapeutic relationship. I have witnessed how relationships fracture and how they mend, how they challenge and how they sustain. I live the tensions between autonomy and connection, between holding on and letting go. These identities are not separate but deeply intertwined, continuously shaping my understanding of what it means to come into being through relationship.
In my lived relationships, it is women, with the exception of my brother, who have most profoundly shaped me—who have taught me what it means to be in connection, to listen, to hold complexity, to remain present in ways that deepen over time. And yet, the writers who have most shaped my intellectual and philosophical explorations—those with whom I have built a kind of reading relationship—have overwhelmingly been men. Perhaps this is not accidental. My father left me as a child—abruptly, single-mindedly, without reciprocity or room for intersubjectivity. In life, he was not someone I could meet in the space in-between.
Maybe, in turning to the words of these men, with the solitary yet reciprocal engagement that reading provides, I have been able to be in relationship with what was lost—a way to make sense of a presence that became an absence, an attempt to find resonance where there had been only severance. In reading, I find myself in dialogue with those who continue in relationship beyond death, whose voices remain alive in the space between text and reader. Perhaps this, too, is a way of staying connected to my father—not in the abruptness of his abandonment, but in a form of relationship that continues to evolve beyond physical life.
Below are some of these men, whose influence is deeply woven into this piece and who, in different ways, have illuminated the fundamental truth that relationship is not just something we participate in—it is the very space where we become, where we come to know ourselves, create meaning, and remain open to the unfolding of one another.
Donald J. Cohen, my mentor at the Yale Child Study Center, underscores that our sense of self first emerges through relationships, as we regulate and understand ourselves in the presence of others, making connection foundational to cognitive and emotional development.
Martin Buber argues that true human life exists in encounter, urging us to relate to others as subjects rather than objects, as meaningful relationships require presence, openness, and genuine reciprocity.
Alva Noë challenges the notion of a fixed human nature, asserting that we are shaped by cultural practices, technologies, and habits, and that art and philosophy continuously reorganize our way of being.
Thomas Ogden deepens our understanding of intersubjectivity, exploring how we co-create experience through unconscious and conscious exchanges, emphasizing that who we are is continually shaped in the relational space between self and other.
Hartmut Rosa examines how modern acceleration disrupts deep engagement, showing that resonance—the experience of being moved and responding to the world—is essential for a fulfilling life.
Andrew Solomon explores the tensions between difference and belonging, particularly in family relationships, revealing how identity is shaped through both inheritance and uniqueness.
Charles Taylor emphasizes that identity is not formed in isolation but within a moral and social interspace, where recognition by others shapes our sense of self and provides the shared arena in which meaning, values, and authenticity are negotiated.
Colwyn Trevarthen demonstrates that our capacity for connection begins in infancy, as primary intersubjectivity allows us to engage with others through expressive movement, forming the rhythms of human interaction before language.
Postscript (April 2025)
When I first wrote this, I shared that women—apart from my brother—had most deeply shaped my lived relationships: teaching me connection, complexity, presence. I also noted that the writers who had shaped my intellectual explorations were overwhelmingly men. At the time, I didn’t question this division. But now, rereading this piece—so threaded with my father’s presence and absence—I wonder if, unconsciously, I was reaching for a kind of dialogue I once longed for and could not have. Seeking presence where absence lived.
As I continue to write, I see that the conversation has always been wider than I first named. Women—both in my life and through their words—have long been part of the weave, even when I hadn’t yet fully recognized them. And men—family, friends, mentors, writers—have shaped me in ways both intimate and intellectual. It was never simply about gender. It was about longing, resonance, and the many ways we stay in relationship with what we have lost—and with what is still becoming.
This isn’t just about expanding a reading list. It’s about recognizing the multitudes already within—the voices we lift, the ones we overlook, and the ones that find us when we are ready.
There is no fixed map.
Only the ongoing work of staying open—to what shaped us, to what we once missed, and to what is still arriving.
