You weren't here, and now you are here

Reflections (and a poem) on belonging to ourselves amidst the chaos

“I want to be sure he sees all the wild possibilities. I want him to know it’s worth all the trouble to give the world a little goosing when you get the chance. And I want him to know the subtle, sneaky, important reason why he was born a human being and not a chair.”

These lines from the 1962 film A Thousand Clowns, spoken by Murray Burns about raising his 12-year-old nephew, have often echoed within me since I first heard them more than a decade ago.

There are so many wild possibilities in this life, not least of which is the fact of our own existence. Since writing this upbeat little piece about nihilism last week, I’ve been pondering the delight and gratitude that spring up in me when I consider the fact that despite/because of all the chaos of the universe, you and I are here: as human beings, on this ocean-covered, atmospheric rock hurtling around its sun at 67,000 miles per hour!

So many things had to collide and coalesce to make our being here possible. Not least of all, as poet Pádraig Ó Tuama puts it, “That you began as the fusion of a sperm and an egg/of two people who once were strangers/and may well still be.”

What an absurdly wondrous thing it is to be human. What a statistically mind-boggling situation to inhabit. What an awesome, awful privilege to be the only you there will ever be.

My friend Hannah Curtis (whom I interviewed on the podcast a couple months ago), often says to her two sons, with awe, “You weren’t here, and now you’re here.”

Since we are here — as humans, no less, not chairs! — wouldn’t it be lovely to make for ourselves, amidst the chaos of cataclysm and catastrophe, a home? An authentic sense of belonging to ourselves?

The Age of Association often required that we contort ourselves into small, misshapen forms of ourselves which were deemed safe and appropriate by institutions seeking to maintain the status quo. This compulsory constriction of who we are is no way to build communities of healing and joy.

Brené Brown has said that “the opposite of belonging is fitting in. True belonging never asks that we change who we are. It demands we be who we are. If we fit in because how we’ve changed ourselves, that’s not belonging, because you betrayed yourself for other people.”

Becoming authentic individuals is part and parcel of the cultural shift we are collectively undergoing. It can also be incredibly isolating — one more reason to feel alone in the vast, expanding universe. The less intuitive — and deeply spiritual work — is remembering our connection to the marvelous whole of this beautifully chaotic universe.

In the emergent Age of Authentic Individuality, I am hopeful belonging might flow from plumbing the depths of our souls, to find flowing in each of us a life Source animating our wildly diverse creative expressions, and connecting us to one another.

I wrote this poem yesterday, reflecting on a quote I recently heard from the late Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh, “Enlightenment is when the wave realizes that it is the ocean:”

You belong — 
not to anything
clawing for your beauty,
nor to anyone
whose touch makes you shrink back — 
but to the ocean of your soul 
welling up
in the glistening tidal pools
of your eyes,
giving glimpses of life
churning under the surface,
vulnerable and powerful,
four billion years in the making.

So tell me… Where do you find belonging in this changing world? Is your discovery of your authentic self connecting you to community? Or perhaps complicating the communities where you have previously experienced belonging? How can true belonging — to your soul, your humanity, your authentic self — connect you to a larger sense of community?