You Belong: A Call for Connection

Most of us are trapped in cycles of not belonging, in the anxiety that we are not normal. Even the blondest, bluest-eyed, straightest kid can feel that he doesn’t belong (he likely lost belonging to his ancestral cultures—the cost of whiteness).

We have to keep reminding ourselves: These are the culture’s thoughts and the culture is really shitty. I adopted these patterns of comparison and competition, of hierarchy and oppression. They are not mine. I absorbed separation and domination the same way I absorbed language.

Anything I do not love about myself plays into the delusion of separation. Why would I not adore every single thing that got me to this moment typing this sentence, breathing this breath, including the ignorance and mistakes of my past?

Our aspiration is rooted in acceptance. Aspiration and acceptance may seem contradictory (those damn paradoxes again): we aspire to belong, and we accept that this is already so. We discover this through the body.

At times, when I’m feeling intimidated, I can deflect to judging others, deeming them privileged or oppressive as a way to assuage my feelings of separation (separation begets domination). I’ve simply swapped the position of better-than for less-than.

The pathology of productivity is entwined with a pathology of performativity. The need to always do (and share) keeps us from grounding, knowing, loving, connecting, and ultimately from being.

It’s hard to change habits without practice. We get programmed by our own experiences, by the culture around us, and by our collective, ancestral, and personal histories.

By the time we are grown-ups (or even adolescents), we hustle relentlessly to “be better”—smarter, healthier, cooler, thinner, richer, funnier, prettier, calmer, and woker. The “-er” at the end of these words is comparison and competition.

All of us are kept reaching for something that is not us: lighter skin, more money, fame, a different accent, thinness. Whiteness can be used as a metaphor for dominant culture, for the individualism of separation and domination. We are taught to not love our hair texture, our learning style, our fat, our clothes. Whiteness is everyone trying to ma