applying existential kink to non-belonging

These days, I spend all my free time being manic on the internet. I’m scribbling notes on machine learning, I’m pretending that lovingkindness meditation is changing my life, I’m discovering hellishly esoteric Twitter accounts that thrive on the false interpretation of buzzwords for comedy, then letting said Twitter accounts make me feel hopelessly unlearned, out-of-touch, and excluded. It is great fun for my synapses and terrible news for my self-esteem.

​On the advice of Sasha Chapin, the author of my favorite Substack newsletter, I am also trying to reconcile with the parts of myself that I detest through a process called shadow work. If you run in spiritual circles, you are likely familiar with this practice. Simply, it involves confronting and making peace with your “shadow self”, the hidden parts of you that cause discomfort and inspire icky feelings. To do this, Sasha recommends a book by Carolyn Elliott called Existential Kink, an offbeat self-help guide that theorizes that many of the painful circumstances we find ourselves in are self-generated. Though we claim that we don’t want to be in difficult situations, we unconsciously act in ways that keep old patterns of behavior alive and functional even when they cause us suffering. By bringing those patterns into conscious awareness - or even better, loving awareness - we begin to reclaim agency over our feelings, allowing us to derive pleasure from unpleasant sensations, or recognize the illogic of our actions and change them. In sexier language, we can cum to our problems until they are no longer problems.

I read and continued to reread different sections of this book over the course of several weeks, in the meantime spritzing rose-scented mist into the air and trying to “drop in'' to my embodied self during short meditations. Lying on my back, I tested my reaction to phrases like, “I am unlovable” and “I will never live up to expectations” and “I will always sell myself short.” These had the approximate flavor of truth, like aspartame mimics sugar, but fell short of triggering the red-hot flash of shame/desire/”turned on”-ness that would signal a hit upon something major. Discouraged, I retreated to Sushiro, a heavily air-conditioned conveyor-belt sushi restaurant where I like to muse on my problems and consume cheap sushi. There, I spent four hours reflecting, drinking bottomless green tea, and eating one plate of nigiri every 30 minutes before ultimately landing upon the realization that my “irresolvable” pattern is feeling like I never truly belong.

When I look back at the course of my life, this comes across as a fairly obvious recurring theme, but evidently, I have an outstanding ability to ignore areas of agitation given that it’s taken me this long to investigate, map, and accept this feeling. I’m still working on loving it. The central thesis of Existential Kink posits that the reason why I continually find myself in a position of non-belonging is because some fucked-up, shrouded part of myself secretly craves the drama of being excluded, othered, not good enough, misunderstood, out of place, etc. Elliott refers to this as the shadow self. I think of it as the emo me - the part of me that explains why I know the words to every song on A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out and have trouble hugging my father.

When I think about the type of person who would earnestly feel like they don’t belong, I picture a weird kid wearing a hoodie too thick for the weather, gnawing on an Uncrustable and muttering to themselves about something convoluted and indigestible to the majority of the population, like astral physics or Homestuck lore. Or a pretentious, self-congratulatory elitist who leans heavily on a single accolade acquired years prior to distance themselves from “average people” and doesn’t realize that their “helpful explanation'' comes across as extremely patronizing. Or a pick-me girl volunteering herself for degradation, because validation hits harder when it’s acquired through unconventional means. Basically, Jughead from Riverdale as he delivers his "I’m a weirdo" speech, but without the campy self-awareness or commitment to irony that tones it down. My initial reaction is to viscerally deny that any of these are me, but my fourth or so reaction is to shamefully accept that to some extent, I derive pleasure from acting out certain shades of these personalities. I like to be just different enough to come across as interesting or surprising, but not so different that I’m completely uncategorizable within the social order. This way, I get to maintain my self-constructed narrative that I really am trying my best to fit in; it’s just that some essential part of me renders me ineligible for full acceptance.

Non-belonging comes in two main flavors, and both of them resonate with me. Broadly speaking, using the existential kink framework, I’d say they are sadistic and masochistic. I don’t belong here because I’m better than this is sadistic, helping me feel high and mighty and special because I have some trait or insight or ego that some other people do not. I don’t belong here because I’m not good enough is masochistic, allowing me to feel like the mysterious, complicated, unknowable, troubled soul that I long to be perceived as.

In my quest to wrest forth the repressed part of myself and embrace her tightly, I made a list of the times when I felt like I didn’t belong, then practiced sitting with the feelings that arose. To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve made any “breakthroughs,” but at the very least, in addition to being deeply mortified by my most awkward moments, I am also slightly amused by my refusal to just, like, lean into the vibe and have a good time.

To be clear, I wrote this list for documentation purposes, and because I’m practicing being myself (read: neurotic) in public. I did not write it with the intent to receive pity. I am sure it is clear to both of us that I live an ultra-charmed life, so there’s no reason to feel sorry for me. In the opposite direction, please forgive me for being hung up on what I also recognize as extremely minute and unimportant first-world problems. Rather than either of these options, perhaps you can instead view me as prone to dramatics, self-obsessed, or flatly insane - these traits, while not exactly complimentary, will at least titillate my enneagram Type 4 personality.

If you aren’t in the mood to read what is essentially a massive list of complaints, here’s the TL;DR: I have felt non-belonging at many points in my life, for many different reasons, and in many different ways.

Feel free to skip to the end of this blog to read about how I (tried to) use existential kink to reconcile this.

​Final note, the last thing I want to do is insinuate that the kindness of my friends, family, and the general human populace has not been “enough”. I don’t want to pull an “I have no friends!” while talking to you, a friend. I have received incredible, bountiful love and support throughout my life. There is not a single person in my life who desires to hurt me. I know this and am grateful for it. Yet, I feel a pervasive lack of belonging. All these things can be true at once.​

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a non-exhaustive and overly personal list of times when i felt like i didn't belong
​
Elementary School:

1. Somewhere around third grade, my teacher mistakenly latched onto the idea that I liked the color pink. I didn’t, but I was eager for attention and slowly incorporated it into my identity. I began to wear pink every single day and bought a pig-shaped Jibbitz to ensure that something pink would always be on my person. At eight years old, I internalized that I needed to change parts of myself in order to be liked, which of course, meant that my “authentic” self simply wasn’t good enough, unlike the other kids, who were perfectly fine as is. Nowadays, I question whether I truly like the things I do, or if a subconscious part of me is faking it in order to receive acceptance or better fit a prescribed mold. Am I adaptable because I am naturally adaptable, or am I adaptable because I have learned that it is advantageous to do what the rest of the group thinks is best?
2. All throughout elementary school, a fellow classmate would invite me to parties at her place. Every year, her family would host either a Halloween or Christmas party. Some of my earliest recallable memories take place at these parties, which were enormously fun and kickstarted my obsession with Lip Smackers. However, as far as I can remember, I wasn’t close friends with the girl who hosted the parties, and the guest list was always an odd conglomeration of kids who didn’t necessarily belong to a set friend group at school. I can’t say for certain, but back then and even now, I had a suspicion that her parents were exceptionally thoughtful and kind people who purposely invited children (and parents!) who were often left out. As an adult, this act of compassion makes my heart weep. But as a child, I felt like it signaled my eccentricity and inability to make friends, which left me conflicted about whether or not I should enjoy myself freely. 
3. As early as I can remember, I can recall feelings of slight shame surrounding my ethnicity. When I was very young, I refrained from sharing my Indonesian heritage with my classmates based on previous conversations that clued me into the fact that very few of them knew what or where Indonesia is, which in turn, made me feel different and foreign in a bad way. Now that the people whom I interact with have a better sense of geography (and an increasingly disapproving view of Chinese development and tourism worldwide), I usually say I’m American, Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Chinese, in that order, again minimizing certain parts of myself. For the most part, I broadly identify as Asian-American, but even that is not completely without baggage because of all the cringe subculture that is produced by our community. 

​Middle School:

1. One summer, my mother hired a babysitter to take my sister and me to kid-friendly courses at our local community college. Sometimes, my mom would pay the babysitter extra to take us to do something “fun”, like get frozen yogurt or see a movie. While this seems like a very normal thing in hindsight, at the time, I found it pathetic, sad, and infantilizing. Pathetic, because the subtext was that someone needed to be paid to spend time with me. Sad, because both my parents were too busy to spend time with their children. Infantilizing, because it reminded me that though I felt mature enough to look after myself, I was a literal child devoid of life skills. Additionally, though my family was solidly middle-class by this point, I remember feeling worried about the financial burden I imposed upon my parents. Knowing exactly how much the babysitter cost slapped a price tag on my existence, and I was ashamed by how expensive it was to keep me alive and engaged. I did not feel “worth it”, and in fact, felt guilty for whatever mistake I made that indicated I found myself deserving. 
2. I was placed in a hybrid ESL/Native English speaker class, and despite knowing that I was a skilled English speaker on a cognitive level, I was partially convinced that I was placed in the class as an ESL student. I’ve always feared that I’m much less competent than I think I am and that maybe everyone around me is performing an elaborate ruse to protect my feelings. Because I have often been chided for being honest instead of kind, I don’t find it completely ridiculous to believe that others have received the same programming, and are similarly just “being kind” when in actuality, I am terrible. 
3. One year, I was placed in a different lunch period than the rest of my friend group, which meant that I was left out of the primary opportunity to socialize. My old friend group continued to make memories together without a hitch, as friend groups are prone to do, which left me feeling forgettable and unimportant. I learned that just because someone is important to me, that doesn’t mean that I am of any consequence to them. Such is life!
4. My parents both worked full-time, so I started to see less of them as I grew older. This made me feel a bit abandoned at times, especially since my sister felt emboldened to tyrannize me in their absence. I disliked going to after-school care or waiting at the public library for my mom to pick me up and wished I could just go home right after school like a “normal” kid. At the same time, I began to take pride in my independence and develop a distaste for people who I perceived as “spoiled”, “needy”, or “overly dependent”. This manifested into an overemphasis on self-reliance and a refusal to place trust in others, as well as an unhelpful and poncy feeling that I am unique in my aloneness. Because my parents’ attention was pulled in so many different directions, I felt like I had to be exceptional to warrant them spending any of it on me. Fearful of letting them down, I started hinting that they didn’t need to attend my performances, award ceremonies, sports games, etc. By high school, the thought of my parents showing up in any capacity actually made me uncomfortable, and I asked that they stop coming to anything inessential. For example, I played softball for four years in high school, and neither of my parents ever attended a single game. Acutely aware of my parents’ limited time and energy, I remember feeling clinical amounts of anxiety if I wasted either. I have a vivid recollection of sitting in the car with my father while we waited for my friends who ended up being 30 minutes late and feeling disgusted with myself for inconveniencing him to such a degree. Today, I have issues accepting “being cared for” sensations. I feel uneasy when people go out of their way to express affection for me that I didn’t specifically request. At my most unhealthy, I find it burdensome rather than supportive and respond with mockery (“you’re stupid for doing that,” “why would you waste your time?”) instead of reciprocation. 
5. I was explicitly bullied for the first time in my life. Through a slow process of exclusion and teasing, I was pushed out of the friend group that I was a part of for my entire school life prior. For a time, I stuck around and accepted mistreatment because I had no framework for the appropriate response. A boy one grade above me nicknamed me “Jynx” in reference to the big-breasted Pokemon that looks like Nicki Minaj, which is pretty funny now, but was confusing and hurtful at the time. (Sidebar: if anything, I am Smoochum, the evolution before Jynx, who has thick, straight bangs and fights using a move called “Mean Look”). Most kids have a hard time during middle school, and I was no exception. I was chubby, unathletic, and uncool. I discovered nihilism and diet culture around this time, neither of which were very good for my mental health and sense of cohesion with the larger world. Both of these subject matters continue to haunt me in newer and more inventive ways! 

High School:

1. I played softball for my high school team. During the three years I played at the JV level, I was a passably okay player, mostly because I could exploit the low level of play to run bases aggressively. It was nice and fun, and I was even team captain for a couple of years. When I tried out senior year, the coaches were too nice to cut me entirely, which meant I made varsity by default. On my new team, I was definitely the worst player. I also did not have many friends. I mostly just spent 5 afternoons a week feeling extremely self-conscious and fearful that I was holding everyone else back. If you have ever been tasked with inserting yourself into an existing dynamic, you know how strenuous and soul-crushing it can be. And if you have ever been treated with unexpected gentleness, you may be moved by this quote from Ocean Vuong: “Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined.” Doing things you’re bad at produces results on an S-curve, where at first, everything sucks, but then you make exponential gains both in skill and self-confidence. However, after a certain period of climbing, your potential to improve peters out. If at this point you are not sufficiently masterful or no longer deriving satisfaction from the task, doing the thing becomes significantly less worthwhile. In the “slow” period, you might be temporarily rewarded with helpful life lessons such as persevering through adversity and accepting that you can’t be good at everything. But after a certain point, those helpful life lessons turn into self-esteem-destroying reminders that you totally and completely suck, and this is when the activity ceases to be productive altogether. Every person has a different cap on how long they can spend doing something they are bad at before it hurts, and I exceeded my cap with softball. 
2. I took drama class through all four years of high school, but never landed a role in any of the school plays. On its own, this continual failure is cause enough for shame, but the real damage came from having to watch everyone else become deeply entrenched in a shared emotional reckoning without me. Truly, creating something with other people who are similarly committed to making a cool thing is one of my favorite activities, so missing out on the chance to do so made me feel especially left out. I generally felt like an outsider, which was gross because I dislike that concept and I hate self-pity. Even when people were nice to me, I had a hard time believing it was genuine and not a forced effort. Sometimes I sat alone, willing myself invisible while imagining a panopticon of judgment piercing me from every which angle. On the bright side, I learned how to write plays. 
3. Around sophomore year, I was lovingly incorporated into a friend group that continues to be a bountiful source of joy in my life. But the friend group existed long before I was part of it, which means that there are ties deeper and references more niche than my knowledge extends. Every once in a while, I feel embarrassed when I don’t understand a joke that seems obvious to everyone else or receive a reminder that some people in the group are each other's best friend, while I, on the other hand, have never had a best friend. (Granted, I dislike the label “best friend” because I think it leads to blind prioritization and burdened “shoulds”.) Spatial and temporal distance, as well as social media, heighten these emotions. Sometimes I have the sense that everyone else is blossoming into more realized, connected, and elegant selves while I am simply getting left behind, as unpleasant and frigid as ever. I know this isn’t the full story, but it’s an easy one to believe. 
4. Women receive so many signals that the majority of their worth rests upon their ability to be attractive (particularly to men). This is, of course, abhorrent, but that doesn’t make it any less pervasive. I was a late bloomer, in the sense that I didn’t have any romantic encounters until university. As an adult, I don’t think there is anything wrong with waiting to date, but as a teenager, I longed to be validated through the social accolade of romance. I have not fully outgrown this longing, though I pretend that I’m indifferent. Aware of my middling appearance, I have invited “not caring about looks” into my core personality and morphed it into a point of pride (the same way that stand-up comedians and Ed Sheeran have capitalized on looking a little weird), not because I dislike makeup or femininity or being on the receiving end of respectful gazes, but as a defense mechanism, because I cannot fathom the pain of investing time and effort into being beautiful only to still be ugly. 

College:

1. I recently re-visited some of my coursework and found a personal essay about how optimistic I was about doing life with my group of friends from freshman year, which is ironic because I hardly remember any of their names. It’s hard to explain the devolution in a few succinct points, the same way that it’s hard to explain a mostly amicable breakup that nevertheless results in never talking again. Pretty much everyone in this group is still close friends, which means that the problem was definitely me. I frequently see Instagram photos of these people looking fresh-faced and healthy in Europe, and it makes me feel awkward and ashamed. I almost want to apologize - though I’m not sure exactly what for - but the appropriate moment has long since passed. 
2. In university, the majority of my social life was shaped by being in a predominantly Asian-American sorority, which introduced me to several role models and friends whom I adore and admire greatly. However, explaining this era of my life to anyone unfamiliar with the benefits of cultural-interest Greek life puts me on edge, like I have to provide justifications as to why I joined. It really makes me feel my “otherness”, which can be ostracizing, but also a peculiar source of conceit. “You, a sorority?” my new acquaintance asks, bewildered. “Yes, me, a sorority,” I answer, chuffed that I have managed to construct an intriguing amalgamation of personality. On the other hand, much to my chagrin, a small part of me desires to be seen as “not like other [Asian] girls”. This means that joining an Asian sorority was an exceptionally nonsensical move, on account of it is perhaps the ultimate way to be reduced to the social stereotype of an Asian girl. The whole thing is a bit silly, because here is a group that I am irrevocably a part of, and yet I don’t experience “belonging” because I’m preoccupied with maintaining a self-imposed sense of separation. 
3. My university course required me to live in on-campus housing for the first two years of school. This didn’t have a major impact on my life during freshman year because all of my friends were also living in the dorms. In sophomore year, however, eight of my closest friends moved into a house together, while I had the displeasure of paying my university a staggering amount of money to keep a tense household with three roommates who I tried very hard not to bother but ended up bothering a great deal anyways. Being physically separated from my social circle did have some upsides, like being able to stay out of domestic dramas. But its primary effect was to make me devastatingly lonely. Because I was far away, I missed out on so many “hey, wanna join?” offers to grocery shop or grab lunch or shoot the breeze. I missed out on chances to casually chat about our days and our thoughts and our feelings. I missed out on the opportunity to share life. I spent a lot of time alone, not on purpose, and socialized mainly through forced interactions like class or work or mandatory club meetings, which made me feel like a whisper of a person. I was Tinkerbell asking people to recognize my existence by clapping, and the applause was scattered.

​Adulthood:

1. All of my big-girl jobs have either been 1) not cool in terms of money-earning, 2) not cool in terms of identity affirmation, or 3) not cool in terms of impact-making. This prevents me from taking ownership over whatever I happen to be doing at the moment. Rather, I actively resist incorporating it into who I am. For example, I am currently an ESL teacher living abroad, but like, not like that, you know what I mean? To some extent, I agree that work should simply be work and that we should focus on cultivating rich personal lives independent of our employers. But wouldn’t it be sick if both were significant sources of meaning? 

Lifelong: 

1. Broadly, I would describe myself as “not fun”. I have a personality that naturally gravitates towards introspection and seeks to avoid any scenario where I might have the misfortune of seeing someone puke. I am simply not a good time! This is okay, because we all bring different strengths to the table. Still, not being interested in the things that the people around me seem to value highly makes me feel atypical and unlikeable. In most settings, there’s an easy “in” that automatically connects any two random people. In university, it’s drinking. In large cities, it’s supporting a sports team. In online spaces, it’s video games or K-pop or a particular philosophical approach to life. The more niche the environs, the more niche the “in”. I do not possess many of these “in”s because, as I am coming to realize, I have spent a lot of time trying to be original instead of personable.  
2. I am a begrudging Jack of all trades, in the sense that I am adjacent to a lot of things, but don’t actually know enough about any subject to discuss it confidently. In-person, I’m a little intense, not to the point of abrasion, but enough for people to quickly intuit whether or not I’m their vibe. Online, I’m insufferably normie and will not understand your reference. I’m culturally literate only with great effort, I write a little but not in any official capacity, I run but I’m slow, I’m woke-ish when I try, I’m slightly tech-aware, I’m Japan-pilled but anti-Japan-pilled rhetoric, I’m low-grade spiritual, I’m cute but only in the right lighting, I’m increasingly convinced by EA but not smart enough to defend why. Basically, I’m hedging on pretty much every single front, just in case. I’ve made a habit of preemptively lowering expectations. I exclude myself before you do it for me. 
3. My family has a heart-shaped wooden sign hanging in our house that reads, “Always my sister, forever my friend.” I have always disliked this sign, mostly because my sister and have a rocky relationship, but also because I am wary of superlatives. In popular culture, there’s a narrative that “family comes first!” which in all frankness, does not ring true for me. I certainly want to live up to my parent’s expectations of what a good sister and good daughter are, and I want to experience these things for my own enjoyment too. But as it stands, I am not sure if it is possible to be my “authentic self” and live up to these ideals at the same time. My hesitancy to open up means that I am a stranger to my own family. Though this is vastly preferable to being the type of family who plays charades together, not being close to my family makes me feel like I’ve been shut out from something essentially human. Clearly, I must be damaged if it’s so hard for me to feel known even by the people who are supposed to love me most. I know it would hurt my parents to hear me saying these things, which makes me feel like a truly awful, ungrateful daughter. When we’re together, I can sense that they love me, but do they like me? It is devastatingly difficult to discuss with any honesty, so I don’t think we ever will.

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I am filled with anticipatory dread thinking about people reading that long and whiny list and knowing exactly what situations I’m referencing, then coming to the conclusion that I truly am a loser, being judgmental about my heightened perspective on what everyone else experienced as incredibly mundane, or feeling inclined to apologize for situations that are nobody’s fault and entirely my own farcical construction. They might want to talk about things, which is likely to be scary and excruciating, but the braver parts of me know that it might be healing and restorative too.

In making the list, I identified some reasons why I refuse to feel like I truly belong. I reject belonging because:

1. I am embarrassed by some aspect of the group, or myself
2. I find it incongruent with who I ought to be, long to be, or am expected to be 
3. I do not feel worthy of the love/care the group provides

Throughout Existential Kink, Elliott asks the reader to consider that “having is evidence of wanting.” As in, some part of us genuinely wants whatever it is that we have, even if that happens to be something that causes us anguish. It’s a bold claim, but it’s an interesting one to toy with. If you allege not to want something but continually find yourself constructing scenarios where it happens anyways, perhaps it’s possible that there’s actually some desire there.

I tried to consider how my aversion to belonging has benefitted me, or at least my shadow self. I want to not belong because:

1. It makes me feel special
2. Belonging invites the possibility of hurt

“Special” comes in many shapes and sizes, both positively and negatively connotated. In some instances, non-belonging makes me feel special because it allows me to develop more accurate social perception, the ability to code-switch, and neat introspective qualities. It makes me independent, capable, and non-reliant. It also hits on a lot of tortured artist tropes; surely, non-belonging makes me a stronger writer, a more unique person, and a better conversationalist. In the other direction, sometimes I feel special in the derogatory, pitiable kind of way - more excluded than different. But even this can be satisfying, because it provides evidence that I really am Bad and Not Worth Getting To Know, which protects my ego-mind and saves me the trouble of needing to rewrite my constructed narrative of self. These are all compelling reasons why my shadow might pull me away from belonging, even whilst I yearn for it.

The second point is harder for me to explain because it requires me to define what “belonging” is. I do not have a good pulse on this, because, as this blog post so thoroughly outlines, I am not sure I have ever felt it. My best guess is that true belonging is when the group feels like just as safe a place as your individual self. (Maybe that is too high a bar? I’m curious to hear your thoughts.) In belonging, you use love or shared goals or similar characteristics as justification to tether yourself to others, and suddenly, the actions of other people have significant influence over your life. They usually use their power for great good, but they occasionally use it for great evil, often on accident. You express care for each other. You experience acceptance. You become responsible for others’ well-being because you want to be. Your specialness starts to be viewed in contrast, rather than in absolute. You reveal your full self, and this gives others the power to hurt you in visceral ways. But maybe, also, to support you in visceral ways. I am starting to think that this is a risk worth taking.

In an email, my friend wrote me: “It’s hit me that I have a community here, these people love me, all these things that either didn’t occur to me or I doubted them into oblivion.” Maybe it is too much to wish for, but I hope that I am also doubting some love into oblivion.

For right now, accepting my shadow self kind of just looks like taking responsibility for the bad stuff too. If I’m unwilling to admit that some part of me likes to stir up trouble for entertainment, then I’ll forever cry “woe is me” and believe that I have been relegated to a cursed reality of perpetual alienation. If I’m willing to look the nasty parts of myself in the eye, then I get to have a little fun with the woe. And if I want to change the pattern and exercise ownership over the difficult parts of my life, I’m ultimately capable of that too. The point is recognizing where the behavior stems from so that I can consciously let it happen or intervene and switch courses. The next time I find myself withdrawing instead of accepting the hands that are outstretched towards me, I have the wisdom to approach the situation with intention (but also a sense of amusement and play), rather than defaulting to whatever mechanism of fleeing and fretting and “not knowing why everything is going wrong” that I learned in childhood. I can also outstretch my own hand. I can recognize how viewing myself as deficient or separate once served me, but no longer does. I can get tangled up in situations that I actually enjoy, and not situations that I merely enjoy in a perversive, shitty kind of way. I am allowed to belong. Maybe I already do.

I have a lot more meditation to do in order to accept these truths, not just be able to write them down coherently, but I think I’m on the right path.

Last Christmas, I was eating coconut noodle soup in a Japanese coastal town when I realized that I am the world. Following the logic that a wing is bird and a branch is tree and a forest is earth, a person is world. I have always known this on a subconscious level, but on that day, I brought my understanding to the surface, and it awakened me to my ever-present liberation. I accepted that I am one modicum of the capital “S” Buddhist conception of Self (and also, the entirety of it). I acknowledged that, by virtue of being divined by the indefectible Universe, there are aspects of my existence that are fundamentally beautiful and worth experiencing.

This understanding ushered in many months of amazement with the world, a reanimation of childlike wonder that I had not felt for many years. I believed in the promise of Being and consequently believed in myself. I let go of impossible expectations. I made new friends. I ran a marathon. I tried new things for 28 weekends in a row. I looked at the ocean and the sun and cried tears of gratitude. Life was sickeningly sentimental and incredibly based. There is belonging in feeling like the world is on your side, that you are on your side, that you and the world are collaborating on a shared vision of flourishing.

If I am a mere conduit through which the unflawed Universe takes shape, then I am allowed to be, feel, and love every part of my existence, right here and right now - even the yucky and shameful parts. And if we are both the world, then I am sure we have more overlap than I am giving credit for.

​Maybe we can find belonging together. Do you want to try it? We can take a walk around the block, then fall into the crevices of each other’s minds. I’ll bring snacks.