Belonging
Belonging I long for
You
Desperately alone in a crowded room
Try to be this, try to be that
Tryna be some cool ass cat
The more I try to be something else
The less I feel like myself
Duh
For belonging is a home inside of your heart
The only door always unlocked
An entry shaped exactly like you
So always to yourself be true
I used to be a shapeshifter
I had a completely different identity every time I'd walk into a different room.
In school and around my friends, I was the Fearless Risk Taker That Doesn't Care about Anything. I'd snort Oxy Contin during Math class and smoke a joint before football practice.
I tried real hard to put on my Polite Southern Catholic School Boy mask when I was around my teachers. “Yes ma’am of course I’ll tuck my shirt back in.”
On my way home, I'd change into my Everything Is Fine Here Don't Tell Me What to Do robes before seeing my parents. I developed a world class ability to maintain a straight, sober face no matter how depressed, angry or high I was.
A few nights per week I'd hop back into my truck, take a Xanax and put on my By Far The Youngest Member of the Baton Rouge Alcoholics Anonymous Community Member outfit on my way to an AA meeting.
Every single day. All day. Changing who I was.
I was one of the most popular kids in my class, in the entire school, and I seriously considered killing myself.
I learned that belonging has nothing to do with how many people like you or think you're cool.
Brene Brown says that "True belonging doesn't require us to change who we are. It requires us to be who we are."
Belonging is about being ourselves and then sharing THAT rather than who we think we should be for others.
Acting like yourself shows YOU that YOU are enough.
Then out from that place of enoughness sprouts a little courage to show yourself to others.
Then, and only then, do you have the opportunity to be accepted for who you are. To feel like YOU belong to others. Not you covered up by a BUNCH OF OTHER SHIT.
"Being myself" was foreign at first. But layer after layer, I started stripping away things that weren't me.
Being ourselves isn't a destination.
I still do and say shit that makes me cringe. Things to appease. To impress. To avoid confrontation. To fit in. To control.
I just do them less.
And over time I've learned to stay in closer contact with who I truly am. What I like, what I don't like. What I want and what I don't. Who I want to become. How I want to feel. How I want to be-long.
A few things I want to share with you
A podcast with my incredible wifey on quitting social media, self-expression and parenting lessons.
According to the author of this article, this is the most plausible theory of the origin of music.
Early humans couldn’t make tools, so we were far from apex predators. In fact we couldn’t even hunt. Instead we were scavengers. We’d find an animal that was struck by lightning or something, or we’d find an animal being eaten by, say a lion, and try to scare her off.
We were the dudes that only date women their best friends already dated.
The theory, based on #realscientific tools and methods, is that in order to scare off something like a tiger we would do the following:
Be in a big group
Make rhythmic sounds like chanting or hitting rocks together (we are the only animal of all singing animals that can use rhythm)
Make rhythmic movements like the ones in the Haka dance
Rather than appearing to be a bunch of weak ass individual animals, this would make us look like one crazy, terrifying unit.
This is the tip of the iceberg. This article is so good.
Author Tucker Max wrote an amazing piece on what he’s doing to practice radical self-reliance to protect his family and his community if the shit hits the fan.
"With my desire to improve everything, I destroy the moment.." -Naval
That’s all I have for you this week.
Peace,
Michael