Hey ya'll
There's been this something that has been bothering me quite a bit. I don't suppose many of us will care to admit to such an act, but I am quite inclined to believe that we have all done it at some point in our lives. Some more than others. High school, for me was a period of exceptional deception and strife. Indeed when I look back on all of those years in WMS I cannot seem to find a fix point upon which I can focus on and draw a narrative of myself. That is to say, at the end of it all, you could ask me "who", or "what" I was back in high school and I would probably not be able to give you a clear, indeed just "one" answer. Now of course some of us can argue that this can be attributed to the fluid sense of identity. After all, the anthropologist might assume; "Aren't we constantly being constructed by the things and factors that surround us, making such notions of a stable identity nothing more than a fantasy?" And of course, who am I to disagree, indeed I believe such a notion to be true.
However, I also believe that such "changes" , "switches" or indeed "transitions" if one were to call them anything are to happen rather leisurely, almost reflexively in such a manner that one notices, if at all, little of the change itself. People are like rocks in a river in this aspect. Forever changing but themselves (and indeed to the casual observer) oblivious of the change being wrought upon them like the furious swirl of the river. Of course, every now and then something might happen that causes one to re-evaluate and change one's mindset in a rather urgent manner, but such things usually interrupt individual biological narratives and are perhaps best left as outliers.
So what can it be said of the individual, myself in this instance, who had many switching self-narratives in a relatively short span of life that seems to fall coherently upon one another, switchign themselves appropriately in any one frame of time? I suppose I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, or perhaps even weaving a web I myself cannot hope to untangle. Simply put, if we think of life as a linear journey, each specific moment involving our spiritual and emotional development (indeed we will leave out the physical part of it in this discussion) a journey from Point A to Point B and later to Point C, then perhaps I would tell you that it almost seems to me that my high school life seems rather more like a journey from Point A to Point B, only to go back to Point A again and make that journey by different means. And so it is not surprising perhaps that when (from my perspective) it seems like my peers have already made it to Point C and, indeed, Point D. I am still stuck at Point B, pondering what other possible methods and moves I could have made, or indeed shouldn't have.
I suppose one could simply say that such things happen naturally to some people, but to adopt such a stance would mean succumbing to a defeatist nature. I rather think, instead that perhaps it was more about the nature of "belonging". Along with other things, I believe that identity has a firm root in the notion of "belonging". Instinctively I believe that all living things need to "belong". Indeed, even if some may argue that they lack sentience or indeed an active mind, they do belong. Allow me to illustrate my point. On a wide scale, one could say that even plants who lack what we can scientifically prove as an active or indeed sentient mind belong. They belong to a wide niche' in our ecosystem. And so is its identity formed by it's place in the world. So too, do animals fullfill their purpose in this sense. And it is so that I conclude that "belonging" gives us "purpose" whether we are aware of it or not.
With "sentient" beings like humans, seemingly simple notions like belonging can take rather complicated turns. On the one hand, having distanced ourselves from the natural order of things (indeed humans are no longer a part of the natural life cycle save as consumers) we no longer inherently "belong" into any specific niche and thusly said, our purposes in life are no longer evident. That is to say, unlike the plant, whose purpose is to provide food and oxygen (and live life itself) or the bird to feed of plants, disperse their seeds and indeed provide food for other animals, we humans have lost the natural sense of what it means to be alive on this earth. And that is perhaps why we are constantly searching for our "purpose" in life. Straining our sights to see a Higher Truth, our ears to hear our Calling. But of course, that has yet to be seen.
And so we turn to other things to give us purpose and, by extension look for other methods of "belonging" to provide this sense of purpose. In the primitive tribe, the relationship between purpose and belonging was much clearer. As one belonged to a tribe, so too would they have a purpose within it and, in exchange for fullfilling their purpose, would be provided with security and a sturdy biological narrative or life story. These days we belong to similar social groups, societies, friendship circles and indeed family provide us with this sense of belonging and gives us much of the "purposes" in our life which we are most usually not aware of or have come to take for granted. In a friendship circle, for example, we are provided with the purpsoe of being a "good friend" whatever that entails to an individual. In a family, our purpose usually borders along the lines of fillial piety. In religious circles, the veneration of our chosen Gods. The difference between these set of "purposes" opposed to the more instinctual "natural" one played by the "non-sentient" organisms of Earth is mainly that because they are quite obviously constructed by the shifting, thinking mind, they can also be easily broken. But I digress.
The point here being, if one does not belong, is it then possible for one to truly attain a sense of ontological security (the security in the knowledge that one's life story belongs to a specific niche' and, indeed that one's purpose is a linear and coherent work constantly in progress) ? Well, coming from personal experience I would say that it is difficult (if only because the word "impossible" is too overarching a statement for me to make) . Because again, if you were to ask me who, or what I was in high-school and I were to look back on all the answers that I might have given you, I can quite easily come to the conclusion that most of them would be in some way related to a time when I "belonged" someplace. And coming from a person who had little or no "social group" or indeed, a fixed "clique" this is actually quite an easy thing to do. Indeed, I would probably think of my days in the LIDRA club in lower secondary, maybe the choir, after that. Or being a class moniter between ages 13 to 14 and a prefect at the age of 16. Note how all of these identities were not really coherrent in a sense that they usually cut off abruptly beginning again with something rather similar in fashion. It's almost like my biological narrative manifested itself in a series of short video clips, each one not related to the other.
I'm sure for those of you who've had the pleasure of belonging to a fixed circle of friends will probably find this different, or indeed if it ever crossed your mind. But indeed if you had belonged to a rather constant group of friends you would perhaps find that your narrative was a little more coherent. Biological narrative, in that sense, has become for you like an ongoing television sitcom or drama (whichever you please).
Even now, as I sit in front of the computer, almost 4 years since i graduated from high school can I see how my biological narrative is quite lacking in a sense of a coherent story. I still don't belong to a fixed circle of friends. And indeed if one were to ask me what or who I was in university I would probably mention various "clips" of times I belonged to a society or a production or something of the other. But perhaps that is my problem. Maybe a biological narrative in itself need to be linear to be coherent. Perhaps for some people, a life story takes place from Point A, then proceeds to Point B, moving on to Point C and so on and so forth. But for others, biological narrative manifests in terms of a cycle, an everlasting loop of short, seemingly unrelated clips, and there's nothing one can do but learn how to find ontological security in it.
But alas, my friends, that would be most defeatist in nature.
PEACE OUT
