The sight and sounds deafening the senses and yet they remain unawakened, unaware, and unresponsive. Difficult to be when one does not feel be-longed and impossible to be when one does feel belonged, for then, one takes on the identity of the belonged. Can one be a fly on the wall? Watching not just things happening outside, but also within.. This feeling of non-belonging and the want of that. . And yet realizing that it is not what one really needs .. How much energy does the body devote to belong? The belonging is always in time and an unsuccessful imitation but deep down we realize that once we have the want we are in time and we can only have relationships in time with separate things; no one knows how to reach the timeless. The timeless reaches us.
What is that makes a human feel belonged, related, and connected? We certainly seem to have a need and demand that. Certainly language is a seeming pointer to this belonging but a pointer to something beyond.. it isn’t the delight of sharing a language but seemingly a pointer to something else. When it is taken for granted and not questioned, then other things become more important but when one cannot rely on any relationship with a human being, then language takes enormous importance. Such was perhaps, the case with my encounter right now with the gentleman from Panama. Shy and hesitant, he waited for the whole journey until he got the nerve to talk to me and even when he realized that I was not what he anticipated, i.e., from Costa Rica (even though my tshirt stated that) he seemed so happy that he could break his loneliness by sharing with some one his life account.
Language gives way to sharing one’s ideas and thoughts and current living and this kinda sharing simply makes one feel good – more than physiological needs, I reckon. This is why human beings decided to hangout in groups and even if future society makes interdependency irrelevant in the physiological world, this psychological need will become a glaring eyesore.
Just like language and culture makes one feel included, there is also the other side of feeling excluded when the desired and requisite sharing is not attained. We transmit to others how much sharing we have done with them through the acquisition of language skills, particular knowledge of the culture, accent, the way we move about and are. This message is received by the other and for the requisite amount of shared values, we are reciprocated with acceptance and a belonging feeling from the other. A tiny lack in such cultural sharing will always hang as a threatening device ready to expose us or immediately withdraw our membership. So within sharing lies the seed of separation.
What is that makes a human feel belonged, related, and connected? We certainly seem to have a need and demand that. Certainly language is a seeming pointer to this belonging but a pointer to something beyond.. it isn’t the delight of sharing a language but seemingly a pointer to something else. When it is taken for granted and not questioned, then other things become more important but when one cannot rely on any relationship with a human being, then language takes enormous importance. Such was perhaps, the case with my encounter right now with the gentleman from Panama. Shy and hesitant, he waited for the whole journey until he got the nerve to talk to me and even when he realized that I was not what he anticipated, i.e., from Costa Rica (even though my tshirt stated that) he seemed so happy that he could break his loneliness by sharing with some one his life account.
Language gives way to sharing one’s ideas and thoughts and current living and this kinda sharing simply makes one feel good – more than physiological needs, I reckon. This is why human beings decided to hangout in groups and even if future society makes interdependency irrelevant in the physiological world, this psychological need will become a glaring eyesore.
Just like language and culture makes one feel included, there is also the other side of feeling excluded when the desired and requisite sharing is not attained. We transmit to others how much sharing we have done with them through the acquisition of language skills, particular knowledge of the culture, accent, the way we move about and are. This message is received by the other and for the requisite amount of shared values, we are reciprocated with acceptance and a belonging feeling from the other. A tiny lack in such cultural sharing will always hang as a threatening device ready to expose us or immediately withdraw our membership. So within sharing lies the seed of separation.
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