‘Connecting’ makes us happier, they say. The post I was reading implied that merely making eye contact counts as a connection made.
Writers must be pretty happy people, then, because we’re constantly trying to connect. Yes, this includes sitting in a corner in shopping malls and people-watching creepily from the sidelines. It includes saying ‘thanks’ to the check-out boy and sketching out his entire (slightly disturbing) youth and adolescence within the passing of a till-receipt, and walking away wondering what the denouement and overall thrust of the narrative should be.
It also helps with household management. The kids give up on keeping secrets because ‘Mum knows everything’. They don’t need to know it has nothing to do with being Mum, and everything to do with being a writer: watching, listening.
So we’re creepily, happily informed. I can live with that.