You should probably just ignore me.

[jackshoegazer]

I woke this morning to my favorite sound: the pounding rain and rolling thunder of a summer storm.  Rather than sleep through this rarity, I left my warm bed, leaving Jacquelyn to sleep.  She came home from her conference last night and for a week had been sleeping on a thin and lumpy mattress.  The girl deserves some time on a good bed.

Perhaps I should take to writing poetry in the mornings.  I always feel pondering and wistful in these early hours, when it's still a little dark and the rest of the house is asleep.  I want to write about the meanings of life (plural, because god knows, there's surely more than one.)  I want to write something true but not obvious.  Any fool can write 2+2=4.

In a friend's journal we've been having a discussion about what he called "being the not", being an outsider from your own culture.  This friend, an American, feels comfortable in Europe where he currently resides because there, he *is* an outsider to the culture and it's normal.  He's not supposed to understand or feel included.  But when in America, because it is his culture, that separation is all the more prominent and feels profoundly wrong.

I suppose I should have asked him if he felt like that before he lived in Europe for so long.

But this has me ruminating.  One of the reasons I fell in love with Kurt Vonnegut when I was a teenager was that for once, I found a writer that saw the world the way I did - almost as a sort of alien anthropologist.  I'd never been able to articulate it before, but there was or rather is a separation, somehow I do not feel a part of or included in my culture.  I see everything from outside.  This grants me a unique perspective, but I think there is something inherent in us, that we wish for the safety of belonging.  It has always been a source of inner tension for me, on one hand, the urge to belong, but on the other, feeling comfortable and at home "being the not."

One of my comments: "The way I see it - humans are by nature social creatures. There is an inherent, undeniable urge to belong. However, like Bernard in Brave New World, sometimes something happens and there are those of us who do not for whatever reason fit. There is nothing wrong with this. I see it as a healthy mechanism of society, in the way shamans lived outside a society, yet were valued for their vision - like a court jester being the only one who could speak with impunity to the king. Societies need outsiders to tell them who they are. Understanding and true knowing can not happen without perspective.

This otherness does not keep us from wanting to belong. It is arguably much harder to be the not, in the same way that ignorance is bliss. For us, traditional societal structures do not work and we are create our own, and often this lawlessness is, well, fun. And as much as we revel in being the not, there is always a part that longs for that safety of inclusion. But that is not our part. We *are* included, but we play such a different role, as if the usher in a theatre was secretly in the play, but never took a step on stage."

I suppose I've written about this earlier as well, or rather touched on it.  Like how in the hero-myth stories, the hero is always damaged somehow, so that even when he returns triumphant, because of his experiences, he can not rejoin society.  He has lived through something that has changed him, marked him as different.  I wonder if this is the case with "the not."  And I wonder if it matters.

I begin to think that the problem lies in expecting a complete split.  You are either an outsider or an insider.  If you are one, than you can not be the other.  Any inkling you may want to dabble in the other side is a betrayal of your siderness.  But you could and can and are, both.  And there's nothing wrong with that.  I can be in the audience and still be in the play.

Comments

[labelle77.livejournal.com]

I have that outsider feeling a lot. Like I'm observing what's going on around me without really being a part of it or belonging to it. It is startling to me when I'm in situations or with people where I don't feel that sense of being detached, and wonderful, and treasured, because I too want to be both.

[jesuslovesbono.livejournal.com]

yes, i have felt the same way...always been a bit of an outsider. i think both Asperger's and growing up in various countries have contributed to this for me. I am learning to belong, but i have been and probably always shall be a "walker between the worlds" (i'm probably not using that phrase the way it usually is used, but whatever) and as you say, that is very valuable.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

Hm...I find a lot that I agree with here, (especially the hero tale aspects) but I almost feel as though this only tells part of the story. I think that some people revel in being "the not" because in some ways, it's easier. It's easier to blame society for your inability to belong, or function, in a healthy way within that society (which often has some truth to it, but just as often can be an excuse). I think this can lead to rather "me-centric" and insular thinking, with an overemphasis on difference without enough attention to empathy, compassion, or community.

[kiwikat.livejournal.com]

This is pretty much exactly what I wanted to say, only I'm too tired to find the words. *echoes of Jacquelyn*

[dakini-grl.livejournal.com]

There's nothing like these hours of the morning, and the more I write, the more I am sure these hours are for poetry, reflection.

It's pleasing to me you know to take full advantage of weather and tenor and time.

Otherness is a restless place, but like you say, offers a place to look at both states.

It also occurs to me as I get older that I've become very good at walking between these two worlds. I can be connected and be the observer. And as you say, allegiance to one or the other is not necessary to enjoy the present -- which is a negotiation between the two, moving ever onward.

[tori-vixen.livejournal.com]

I think the truest part of your statement is the end. You can't know what its like to be outside without some understanding of what its like to be inside, too. Most "lone wolves" have at least a few friends that have some things similar to themselves. To be so similar to everyone that you have no identity as an individual would be a shame, and near impossible. :)

[rainingkisses.livejournal.com]

man, you kick ass.

i feel this way pretty much all the time, too. very few times in my life have i found someone i feel a kinship in, idk, autre-ness, to sound totally pretentious as hell, with.

i always feel like the lens through which i see the world is alternately too broad and too narrow, but mostly too broad. too deep sometimes, too, if that makes sense, but never shallow enough to just be an insider and get it, embrace it all. i don't know if i'll ever be truly relaxed sometimes, if i am anywhere but alone.

but yeah. you kick ass.

[avalons-tear.livejournal.com]

I have always described myself as someone who lives in the woods outside of the village. Not by choice but more as the inability to fit or align my priorities with the collective socially reinforced values. I have found through experience that I prefer it. But I think there is a difference between the one who wants to be seen as different and the one who just notices over the course of life.