Intersections

Bridges surround us all, connecting us to friends and strangers alike. People say that the world is getting flatter, that Gmail and Snapchat are linking us together in fresh and exciting ways. I can Skype with a cousin in the Dominican Republic while ordering a book from a warehouse in Florida. Our world bristles with intangible bridges, innumerable ways for us to project our data and our selves from one far-flung place to another. But these bridges aren’t real. I can’t wander into that Florida warehouse or give my distant cousin a hug. Such bridges provide a comforting, productive illusion of connection. Bridges I have aplenty. What I crave is intersections. Intersections—those moments of tangible synchronicity, of elbow-rubbing serendipity, of crazy, present coincidence. These moments make the world shrink, just a little.

Geneva Langeland
“Bridges and intersections” from Topology Magazine