REALITY?: Longing

Posted on April 18, 2008 by Susan

Can the yearning to belong be even half the feeling of wanting to be different?

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5 Responses to REALITY?: Longing

  1. Dean says:
    April 19, 2008 at 8:41 pm

    I think so. I think that there are a whole large group of people who aspire to belong more than they aspire to be different. They want to be ‘unique’ only insofar as they have been told that they should want it. So they are unique in their Harley-Davidsons, and their base-of-the-spine tattoos, and their interior walls painted in the colours that were in fashion when the paint was bought.

    They don’t like anyone who is TRULY different.

  2. susan says:
    April 20, 2008 at 5:19 am

    Which are you, Dean? I would guess you to be more of an individual than a group member. Maybe we go through stages; childhood and adolescence leaning particularly to the need for acceptance.

  3. Lisa Kenney says:
    April 20, 2008 at 12:04 pm

    Great question! I think both dissipate with age when replaced with other yearnings. At some point we begin to look behind as often as we look to the future and wonder if, should we be gone tomorrow, was it enough? Were we enough?

  4. Barbara W. Klaser says:
    April 25, 2008 at 6:28 pm

    My yearning to belong has always been pretty weak, and my yearning to be different is more like — “Can’t help myself, I am different.” I’ve always thought I was just a wee bit eccentric, weird, whatever word you want for it. Nowadays the word is “creative”. I think one has to think outside the lines, the box, the realms of “normal” to be truly creative, and that often means walking off alone, free of the noise of the crowd.

  5. susan says:
    April 26, 2008 at 10:52 am

    You’re likely right, Barbara; the creative mind is more apt to seek the unusual and have less inclination to belong.

    Lisa, I’m still chewing on your concept of age raising questions of looking back. It seems to make a lot of sense and follows the idea of any journey undertaken where the end is not the highlight…

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