We Belong

Those who know me will not be shocked when I say that I have never cared much for being normal. This is more true now than before. I wanted desperately to be normal when I was young. What I thought then was an effort to be considered by others lovable and capable was the typical youthful desire to fit in, to conform.

As I watch my sons grow up I can see their own struggles to fit in. I sympathize with the shame and humiliation that is occasionally dealt them by loutish classmates, who are merely themselves trying to fit in by crawling over the scorned bodies of the peers they single out for derision. One of my sons just wants to be accepted and acknowledged. The other wants to be seen as different, but his display of being an outsider is another way to fit in - with the outsiders. In high school, I was my younger son. In college, I was my eldest. I played them to the extreme and people who knew me then would scarcely recognize me now.

After working more than half of my life in social services and mental health, I have to admit I do not know what normal is. I know what unhappiness and illness is, because I see a lot of that. The path each person takes from their moments of failure, loss, pain, and feeling unlovable and incapable is different. Pills treat depression and anxiety but they don't solve your problems. I suspect that one serious problem is that deep down we fear that we will be found out. We aren't normal, we don't conform, and sooner or later someone is going to see through our bravado and know we are a fraud.

I'm a kid masquerading as an adult. I'm a goof off masquerading as a reputable business person. My professional persona, which is all over this shameless and self-serving web site, is that of a smart, accomplished, and responsible person. I don't often feel that way about myself. I updated my Curriculum Vitae yesterday to send to a police department in hopes of conducting a little training and it felt surreal. I really have done a lot of stuff, much of it well received, and created some unique and useful things along the road. Yet I rarely celebrate that.

I struggle with the notion of pride. It's a deadly sin, we have been told. Yet the inner perception that we are lovable and capable, our confidence, is essential to being useful, to be able to live a life of compassion for others, to find our happiness. The battle is to accept who I am right now, including everything I wish was different, every mistake I ever made, and the fear I may not be lovable and capable. At the moment of that acceptance, notions of normal and not normal cease to matter.

Equanimity, it is called. Much of my own unhappiness has arisen from attachments to false distinctions. Thoughts themselves can be unhealthy. The more unhealthy they are and the tighter we cling to them, the more sick and disabled we become. The thoughts are always there, left over from our childhood or preached and modeled for us by society, but we can let go of our attachment to them. I'm not normal. And by being not normal, I become like everyone else. Since being like everyone else is one way to define normal, the distinction crumbles and all worry and fear associated with it becomes nonsense.

When we release our attachments to false distinctions we become truly human and capable of compassion for others. I have always hated bullies. Some of them were peers, some teachers, some supervisors, some insensitive lummoxes off the street. I think I hate them because they validate the fear I am unlovable and incapable - and the more intensely I hate them the more they become a mirror of my unhappiness. If I had no insecurities, the words of a bully would be empty and the bully's actions inconsequential.

From the perspective of equanimity and compassion, no bully is really aiming at me. I am a convenience for revealing their inner misery. If I wasn't there, they would surely pick on someone else. The bully on the playground, in the workplace, or on the street is the loneliest soul in that place. They really are incapable of getting their needs met through any means except by trying to spread their misery. They're a pathetic and frightened person who lacks social skills. They aren't being mean because we deserve it. They act this way because they have no capacity for compassion. Nothing could be worse: they live with the constant fear that they don't belong.

We don't need to be normal to belong. The distinction between normal and not normal is unhealthy. We are, all of us, lovable and capable. We all deserve to be happy. We can live in compassion and grace. We belong.

After the recent concert of Eric Lowen and Dan Navarro in Chicago, Dan spoke with my eldest son at length in the lobby, asking him about his musical tastes and encouraging his creative endeavors. After the conversation, my son pointed me out in a line to buy a CD, and Dan pushed through the crowd to greet me and tell me I have a great kid. There we stood, fan and rock star, and the distinction meant nothing because of his compassion. We were simply fathers, two men, in a moment of belonging.

We belong to the light
We belong to the thunder
We belong to the sound of the words
We've both fallen under
Whatever we deny or embrace
For worse or for better
We belong, we belong

- Lowen & Navarro

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