On Belonging

Miles Peacock

To feel as if you belong is one of the great triumphs of human existence — and especially to sustain a life of belonging and to invite others into that… But it’s interesting to think that … our sense of slight woundedness around not belonging is actually one of our core competencies; that though the crow is just itself and the stone is just itself and the mountain is just itself, and the cloud, and the sky is just itself — we are the one part of creation that knows what it’s like to live in exile, and that the ability to turn your face towards home is one of the great human endeavors and the great human stories.

It’s interesting to think that no matter how far you are from yourself, no matter how exiled you feel from your contribution to the rest of the world or to society — that, as a human being, all you have to do is enumerate exactly the way you don’t feel at home in the world — to say exactly how you don’t belong — and the moment you’ve uttered the exact dimensionality of your exile, you’re already taking the path back to the way, back to the place you should be. 

You’re already on your way home. -David Whyte.

Have you ever been in a strange place perhaps far from home and out of nowhere hear your native language being spoken or maybe music from your country? That “insane” feeling that your existence has been validated. This happened to me recently, I could feel my whole body language relax. I had this pull to leave what I was doing and follow the people. 

I have been thinking, that perhaps belonging might just be one of the greatest motivations or influencers of how we behave. The need to people please, herd mentality… Why teenagers can do the riskiest things just so that can be part of a group? Belonging to them is tantamount to their survival. I guess this is also why isolation is one of the most brutal punishments for prisoners. 

Our identities and emotional and psychological well-being are all tied to how connected we feel to others. Finding a tribe no matter how odd you guys are can extend one’s lifespan or improve its quality at best.

Why is there so much disconnection between people then? A void that keeps getting wider.  So what to do in a world where real connections are more a suggestion?  As we look for external belonging, we must first belong to ourselves. I couldn't have said it better than this poem by Derek Walcott. 

LOVE AFTER LOVE

The time will come when, with elation, you will greet 

yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, 

sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was yourself.

Give wine. Give bread.

Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger 

who has loved you all your life, whom you 

ignored for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.- Derek Walcott

Understanding and fulfilling our need to belong while crucial for our well-being and functioning of society, keeping a firm, hold on to our individuality might just be as important as being part of a collective. 

Keep going,

Ije