Kate Murphy

And if you think of your social life, your social world, the people that you interact with during the day, and it doesn't matter if it's the checker at the grocery store or your spouse, it's all a part of your social diet.

And you really want to have those moments of synchrony, even if they're fleeting, even if they aren't like this deep cosmic connection that you might have, where you really have this resonance on all these different levels.

It's really the people that become your intimates in your life are where you have, it's this sense of degree and duration of synchrony.

that the people who become your intimates are people that just really profoundly you sync with on all these different levels, whereas you might sync with somebody else on, I like to think of it as an orchestra, like each of us is this walking symphony orchestra, and some you might only sync with their horn section, some people only the string, but nevertheless, each moment of synchrony, connection on whatever level is part of that basic diet

of social interactions that keep you healthy.

And yes, you can.

You can foster that by being aware of other people, not being so absorbed in your technology that you don't even notice who is in front of you.

Asking questions when you are talking with someone and not just spouting off about yourself, giving yourself a chance to really connect with them on a deeper level.

I don't know.

You're going to have to expand about that a little bit.

I'm not sure I would go with manipulation because it's like diving in.

It's swimming with the current or getting into the mosh pit and dancing with people and really allowing yourself not to be separate and not think of yourself as this individualist and to really acknowledge, which I think a lot of people don't, that we are so profoundly affected by one another.

That it's almost impossible for us to pull the strings on another person because the only way to connect is if you both enter into it and reach a groove together.

I think absolutely.

I read your book, by the way, in preparation.

There was a moment in it where you talked about interviewing the Dalai Lama, and you were talking about how during the course of the interview that you started to lean forward and you started to acquire, as you put it, the most beatific expression that you could achieve.

And that's a lot of what happens with synchrony, because he was participating in that, and

And you were participating in that.

It wasn't that one of you was trying to manipulate one another, but he is so charismatic that some people are able to sort of move you more towards their wavelength than others.

But I don't think it's necessarily conscious.