Heroes Not Zombies

The Connectionist Cafe is an interlinked collection of short stories about everyday Glasgow folk discovering connections in their lives which deepen their experience of life and help them to better understand themselves and others.
In the Connectionist Cafe people meet, talk, explore, learn and connect together. It’s a place to enjoy and a place to grow.

I’ve been writing short stories ever since I retired from clinical practice. Over the years I developed the idea of focusing on the importance and power of connections in life and in the world. This collection of stories has grown from that idea.

You’ll find many references in my blog, here, to Iain McGilchrist’s insight into how our two cerebral hemispheres engage with the world. The left hemisphere uses a narrow focus to separate out elements from within the stream of phenomena and information within which we live. It sets them apart, labels them and allows us to grasp them. The right hemisphere uses a broad focus to see the flow as a whole. It enables us to see patterns and connections, to appreciate reality within its unique and diverse contexts.

As a doctor, I was constantly amazed by patient’s stories. Every story completely unique and every individual understood only by seeing them in their contexts, by listening to them tell me about the events in their lives and seeing how those events connected to form a cohesive personal narrative which would enable me to understand them, and, in the process, enable them to better understand themselves.

We’ve gone too far down the road of separating, dividing and isolating. We need to repair, to heal, ourselves and the world. I’m convinced we’ll do that by discovering and making connections, by building bridges, not walls.

We need to pay a loving attention to others, to the amazing everyday reality and to how we live together on our shared, little planet.

“The Connectionist Café” is available as a paperback or on kindle. Here’s the link to the paperback – https://amzn.eu/d/0dBoLdm8

And here’s the link to the kindle version – https://amzn.eu/d/06trj5Xb