It occurs to me that I am hard wired as a "me". Not me as a character, but a me as separate - me as not part of. Actually I realized that my default is that I don't think of my self as part of anything. Well maybe as part of my immediate family. But that's about as far as it goes.
Now I realize all the usual clichés and facticity's apply. There is evidence that I belong.. I live in a community which is part of a town. I belong to a gym which I use several days per week and know a bunch of other guys who work out there. I regularly play golf with a group of friends. I regularly participate in online programs and am know in those communities. Etc. I could go on but you get the scene. I interact with all kinds of people and in some circles, many would say, I am well known.
Still when I look as these aspects of my life I find my real default thinking/way-of-being about it is that I don't really belong. It's more like I'm still earning my place in these environments - with these people. It's subtle but always there in the background. It's sort of like a nagging background expectation - a set programming - an automatic reality. There's farther to go before I arrive. And so I must keep trying.
Of course it's silly, not true, ridiculous, moronic, ungrounded and stupid. Nonetheless, it's there. When I stop trying to belong somewhere, I don't - belong that is. I'm aware of it now such that I wonder if that isn't some sort of deeply ingrained human condition - maybe the source of us needing each other. Can you imagine not needing anyone? Really? Just Ok alone? Forever? I can't. It almost occurs for me like being dead. That final. That unfeeling. That undifferentiated.
While watching Donald Trump at one of his rallies, it occurred to me that he was eating up the adulation. I wondered about his childhood. If adulation or maybe even being just regarded were missing - as in his parents didn't have a high regard for him. It evolved for me that belonging was really a state of being regarded, being recognized, having value to another.
I realized I don't seek adulation- just regard, maybe respect, as in respecting my existence. It occurred to me that this is what our African American, Indian, and Latino populations are seeking; being regarded, being respected - not anointed, not special, just regarded, just recognized, just mattering. It seems to me that for them, belonging is really missing!
So the me, or if it's also true for you, the us that I'm pointing to innately does not belong. I can't tell if it's in the genes or we're born into that conversation such that it's learned. Of course I/we will survive our sentence. We'll pass on to the next form of energy the universe has in store for us, give up our paltry awareness's and wander/wonder into future, perhaps completely unconcerned for whether we belong or not.
