Our Longing For Belonging
This is my first ever Midjourney (part of the Discord platform) image and thereby my first attempt to use Artificial Intelligence to generate an image. Rather amazing.
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OUR LONGING FOR BELONGING
This week, I have been thinking a lot about change. How much of it is around us, what it does to us humans, and why so many struggle so much with it.
It's been a theme in many of these posts and I think it is essential to recognize that every human being is struggling with change—some certainly more than others. How we express our resistance to change also varies a great deal, as do the tools we all rely on to address it. When our own realities are being challenged or threatened, we make use of coping mechanisms to make us feel better—and not always in a healthy or constructive way. More often than not, we feel attacked, so we often attack back. It's part of our human biology and it’s really hard to change.
The law of entropy firmly reminds us that everything around us, including our own cells, constantly marches toward disorder and disintegration. And at some level, we can't fight it. We can only try our best to adjust our expectations and find ways to live in harmony with this reality. Accepting this fact is the first step towards embracing, rather than fighting, the constancy of change around us.
The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman had a wonderful way of talking about the feeling of change. He referred to it as "liquid modernity" in so far as the feeling of "fragility, temporariness, vulnerability, and inclination to constant change."
Steven Pinker also captured this essence most beautifully:
“The … ultimate purpose of life, mind, and human striving: to deploy energy and information to fight back the tide of entropy and carve out refuges of beneficial order.”
There are, of course, so many layers to the notion of change and fear of change. At the most obvious level, it's about life and death, of mortality and impermanence. Aging is our most fundamental marker of change. When we, or someone we love, are going through health challenges, we naturally worry about suffering and losing all that the life we know, and love represents.
Safety is another realm that concerns all of us. We all need shelter, comfort, and a place where we don't have to fear for our survival. Of course, many people in the world don't have that and it is one of the true injustices in life. It is important to note that during the past 50 years we have made tremendous progress in the reduction of poverty globally, even though much remains to be done. That being said, in many parts of our Western world, we have witnessed a disturbing increase in murders, violence, intolerance, and acts of heinous and incomprehensible brutality.
But belonging is the crux of our current issue, I find. We, humans, are sheep. We are "herd animals". When we don't belong, we don't know what to believe. And the enormous change in our world, primarily driven by advancements in communication technologies, has dislocated, disrupted, and disaggregated our sense of community. There is a lot to unpack here, of course. I will save some for another day. But just think about the changes in how and where we work, how and what we read, and the fact that many of us might have "lost" a sense of belonging simply because the people in our "tribe" might have left us. Or we left them.
I think there is a sense of collective mourning going on relative to belonging. Or, at least, apprehension and uncertainty. My belief is that we have to construct a much bigger tent. We have to welcome more people to join us. We have to delete today's persistent, dangerous, and inhuman notion that if you don't agree, you can't belong. I think that idea is toxic, and we will end up leaving us all very lonely and very unhappy.
There is really only one place. Our planet.
There is really only one race. Humanity.
And there is really only one religion. Love.
That's it. We are all in this together. The rest ought to be a vibrant conversation between all people on how we can amplify, elevate, and celebrate our unique perspectives in service of the common good. In a larger tent, there is more room. Let's create that space.
Lastly, I have thought about our different arenas lately, particularly inspired by the World Cup. In many of life's arenas, we enter them with a competitive spirit but also with human tolerance. Yes, there are the occasional hooligans and fights, but most sports events are friendly expressions of deep commitments and celebrations FOR your team and not necessarily against the other team. When we go to a theatre or a show with perhaps an uncomfortable message, most audiences find ways to enjoy even what they inherently disagree with, and they show respect for both the cast and theatre staff. But somehow in the arena of ideas, we seem to have regressed back to the time of gladiator fights and public executions.
Look at this beautiful image below from after the US soccer game against Iran. It moved me. Let's hope we can bring that spirit into the arena of ideas.
I am also attaching Kahlil Gibran's beautiful poem, “Fear”, which seems so pertinent to the spirit of today's post.
Have a great week!
