Offer of Belonging
I've been in search of belonging for a long time. One might even say it's the reason I write, to find language to explain myself to others so that I might belong. Or so we might belong together.
The search has made me sensitive to peculiar things. Like how our understandings of one another bring us together, and how they push us apart. Or how attention brings some things to life while leaving others to wilt. Or how the self relates to, is formed, misinformed, and reformed by, judgment.
I'm here to ask: can my sensitivities be of use to others? Is there something I might offer so others might belong?
I ask because I have discovered something about my sense of belonging: the heartfelt belief that it is possible to belong in my entirety, and a willingness to try despite so many failures.
Last year I began supporting creatives by offering workshops from a point of view that we are all, already, artists. In making music, essays, games, I felt the need to belong as a musician, writer, and game designer, even if belonging was difficult to come by. It was a need to be allowed the experience that I found myself inhabiting.
It goes beyond the things that happen outside of me. It's also being allowed to have things happen inside of me, to belong alongside the parts of myself which have been put away. To allow everything to light.
Would you like to talk about belonging together? I am here to listen, and to share. If we're lucky we might come away from it feeling like we belong a little more, whatever that might look like. I look forward to hearing from you.
- George
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