We Want Connection, But We Keep Looking Away

Years later, I watched it again, and it landed a bit differently because by then I had started to notice something about life.

We spent so much time trying to get somewhere, planning, optimizing, filling every gap.

Silence feels uncomfortable.

Boredom feels intolerable.

I noticed this while I was watching the film again this week.

I had left my phone in another room on purpose, but my iPad was sitting right next to me.

At one point, I picked it up just to check something, and I caught myself.

That's how it always starts, just a quick check, but what we're really doing is stepping out of the moment.

There's this scene in the film where they talk about an electric blanket.

One character defends it.

It makes sense.

It's cold.

The blanket provides comfort.

The other questions it, not because comfort is wrong, but because constant comfort can numb us.

One of my favorite quotes from the movie is when Andre says, "Somebody who's bored is asleep, and somebody who's asleep will not say no." And that's what's been sitting with me.

We're living in a time where discomfort is optional.

If we feel lonely, we scroll.

If we feel restless, we distract ourselves.

If we feel anxious, we optimize.

We rarely stay long enough in a feeling for it to change.

We say we want connection, but we struggle to sit in a conversation without reaching for something else, and yet the moments that stay with us, the ones that feel alive, they're usually the ones where we didn't leave.

A few weeks ago in New York, I had dinner with a friend that stretched into three hours.

Plates clinked, music hummed softly, and the conversation wandered from art to heartbreak to life.

There was no rush, no checking out, no second screen.

At some point, I remember thinking, "This is it.