Longing is a Bridge
Words have a sense of humor. Take the word belonging. A sense of belonging, scientists tell us, is essential for a fulfilling life. We need to feel connected to others, to place, to a sense of ourselves and how we fit into the world around us. Without a sense of belonging, we are cut adrift on our own oceans of doubt and chaos. Life stops having meaning. We are overtaken by feelings of existential dread, purposelessness, despair, unworthiness. In direct terms, without a sense of belonging, we are caught in a web of longing. Why would the word that indicates a sense of well-being and fulfillment be a word that embodies the opposite of that. Specifically, how could being our longing ever make us feel whole, complete, and like we belong.
Maybe (like everything else) Rumi was right when he said The cure for the pain is in the pain. In this light, maybe he would say we must not deny or wish away our own longing. We must acknowledge it, understand it, embrace it. Because it is in our longing that we find the secrets to our belonging. The things we need, the things we crave, the things we believe will make us whole and happy or even just ok, these are the keys to the door we must walk through. In other words, our longing is the bridge to our belonging. And we must have the courage walk across it. To discover what is on that bridge, instead of just wishing we were on the other side. We must make the journey. And look our monsters in the eye.
The tension between longing and belonging is the same as the tension between love and fear. In some ways, they are actually just different words for the same thing. But longing and belonging are perhaps more specific words for what we are talking about.
I find it increasingly difficult to talk about one aspect of life, without talking about all of them. I’ve talked about how the stories we tell ourselves affect our lives. Longing and belonging are also stories we tell ourselves. And it isn’t just that they may or may not be true. It is that, at best, they are only part true. A fulfilling life requires us to become aware of, and then to come to terms with, everything we are and everything we are not. Everything we possess and everything we do not. Everything the world is and everything it is not.
Whitman was also right, we contain multitudes. None of us are only this thing or only that thing. We are not only kind or only mean, only curious or only closed, only hopeful or only despairing, only skilled or only incompetent, only giving or only selfish, only loving or only hateful. We are all, each of us, all these things, in different degrees and on different days, in different situations. When we have the courage to set aside our stories of ourselves, the good and the bad, and to walk out on the bridge, we must do it with the willingness to see all the faces of our multitudes. And to love each of them the same. Every aspect of ourselves are worthy of our love and compassion.
Our longing comes from our disconnection not just from others, but from ourselves. Our unwillingness to see and to love our multitudes disconnects us from ourselves and from everyone else, everything else. But if we can be our longing, meaning if we can stand in that space and look at all the faces of our longing, and give love to all the parts of ourselves, we can alchemize that longing into belonging. We must see all the parts of ourselves as worthy of love and therefore belonging to each other and the world. That is how our longing is a bridge to belonging. We just have to walk out onto it, with curiosity, not defensiveness, not denial, not scorn. The monsters on the bridge are not real. They aren’t even monsters. They are the keys to the doors of belonging.
This is a good one! Great photos too!
Elegant piece, my friend.