Katherine and I had disagreed somewhat on Substack Notes about the nature of human connection.
Katherine had argued that truly knowing another person requires physical proximity, shared space, eye contact, spontaneous conversation, and that online connection can be deceptive in creating an illusion of friendship and community.
I disagreed. I think, for some of us, writing is the medium in which we are most precise, most open, and most ourselves. In face-to-face interactions, a great deal of attention gets taken up by social niceties and trying to read tone, facial expression, body language and social cues, which can obscure rather than clarify what someone actually thinks.
We got together to see if we really did have a fundamental disagreement here or if we could find common ground. We found we had shared concerns about people replacing physical communities with virtual ones and agreed that a meeting of minds can take place online and lead to genuine connection.
We briefly addressed a question about freedom of speech and we developed another disagreement over the subject of tea. (I suspect the thumbnail image selected is from that part of the conversation due to the fanatical gleam in my eye).
