Belonging in Society
Belonging is important for our growth to independence; even further, it is important for our growth to inner freedom and maturity. It is only through belonging that we can break out of the shell of individualism and self-centredness that both protects and isolates us. However, the human drive for belonging also has its pitfalls. There is an innate need in our hearts to identify with a group, both for protection and for security, to discover and affirm our identity, and to use the group to prove our worthiness and goodness, indeed even to prove that we are better than others. It is my belief that it is not religion or culture at the root of human conflict, but the way in which groups use religion or culture to dominate one another. Let me hasten to add that if it were not religion or culture that people use as a stick with which to beat others, they would just use something else. Are human beings basically evil? The French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, maintained that love is only one person's freedom eating up another's freedom. Are we all called to live and die in conflict? Do all our generous acts merely conceal the need to be superior to others? Sartre leads me to my main point: What is the need to belong
I was touched by how much Eric could communicate to others through non-verbal ways when his verbal capabilities were severely limited and he appeared to be suffering intense inner pain. Prejudices also get built along the way. He cheered up even the most harden of people in the work sites he visited. The position was in Calgary, Alberta and it offered an unique perspective to get to know an interesting part of the country and living with people with disabilities enabled me to get a different life perspective from their angle. What amazed me even more was the ways Eric would go out and get involved so as to not be alone. And so I am left with this one main thought that arose out of my interactions with Eric. Each one of us needs to feel appreciated and understood; we all need help. In 1997 I took a job as a live-in counsellor for people with intellectual disabilities learning to live on their own. ? Is it only a way to deal with personal insecurity, sharing in the sense of identity that a group provides? Or is this sense of belonging an important part of everyone's journey to freedom? Is the sense of belonging akin to the earth itself, a nurturing medium that allows plants and trees to grow and to share their flowers and fruits with all? A group is the manifestation of this need to belong. Through Eric, I saw more clearly how those who are weak and in need have a secret power to touch our hearts and to bring us together in mutual belonging, whatever our differences may be from theirs. We can begin by seeing the other person in all their weaknesses, but in their weakness, recognize our own weaknesses and realize that they have something to give to us as we have to them. How did we, the human race, get to this position where we judge it natural not just to band ourselves into groups, but to set one group against another group, a neighbour against a neighbour, in order to establish some ephemeral sense of superiority? One of the fundamental issues for people to examine is how to break down these walls that separate us from one another; how to open up one to another; how to create trust and places of dialogue. He strived to belong to a group and belong he did. We may be rooted in a specific family and culture, but we come to this earth open up to others, to serve them and receive the gifts they bring to us, as well as to all of humanity.
Common topics in this essay:
Calgary Alberta,
Jean-Paul Sartre,
Belonging Belonging,
Islam Prejudices,
religion culture,
belong common,
human race,
sense belonging,
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Acceptance Essays
