Katie Madigan

Paul Hanstedt

INQ 110 Other Places

December 4, 2014

Home

“Do not cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

                        -Dr. Seuss

            Humans are social creatures.  Pack animals through and through.  As we’ve moved up in time, our social tendencies have remained.  We’re driven by a deep need to find a home, to find somewhere where we belong.  But what counts as belonging?  Is it an actual physical place or could it be a state of being?  Better yet, once it’s found, is it for forever? Or could it be just one spot on the many journeys that life takes us on?  Life is full of promise and adventure, finding where we belong is key.  But having the wisdom to know if we should stay is what makes life interesting. In Brian Collisson’s article The Social Projection of Belongingness Needs, “People are motivated to create relationships with one another”

            In Catherine Watson’s piece, Where the Roads Diverged, she goes in detail about her time and love for Easter Island and how it really became a part of her identity.  From a young age, she felt a deep love and fascination with the island.  As she grew older, her love for the wondrous place only grew and filled her with a sense of longing.  Before she eventually made her trip to the Pacific, she recalled “taking refuge in daydreams- always about somewhere else, somewhere distant and strange, where a stranger like me might better fit.” (Watson).  By the time she’d reached her early thirties, her dream had become a reality; she’d made it to Easter Island.  Almost right from the get-go, she feels that the island is where she is truly meant to belong and she goes one to describe her time and memories there as if they were a past lover.  In a way, Easter Island was her lover.  Not in the literal sense, of course, but in the way that her time there made her discover who she really was and what she had to offer.  She had found her place of belonging.

            Despite having found this home for herself in Easter Island, Watson does something interesting; she leaves.  It wasn’t that she did not love her beloved island anymore.  It wasn’t that at all.  Over the years, Easter had changed.  Whether it was all from tourist bombs or attempts to westernize the culture, it was no longer the place she’d fallen for when she arrived all those years before.  Easter Island was no longer her’s.  Yet, as much as the changes saddened her, she recognizes that it’s time for her to move on.  Many times throughout Where the Roads Diverged, she compares her time on the island to that of falling in passionate love.  Her decision to leave is akin to that of mutual ending of a long relationship; sadness but not bitterness.  Years later, she continues to look back on Easter Island with fondness and warmth, much like a first love.

 At one time or another, we’ve all felt the need to find the place where we belong.  Furthermore, we search for those places of belonging as to really find ourselves.  It’s what drives us to live our lives and move forward. In Brian Collisson’s article The Social Projection of Belongingness Needs, he states that “people are motivated to create relationships with one another” (Collisson) in order to fulfill those innate needs of belonging to some semblance of a group or society. According to CNN columnist, Amanda Enayati people crave belonging because it “is primal, fundamental to our sense of happiness and well-being” (Enayati).  It’s part of the reason that we as a society are not really comfortable with change and transitions at first due to the fear of rejection and loneliness.  However, because we are human, it’s in our nature to adapt to our surroundings over time.  There’s a famous saying that goes along the lines of “when one door closes, another one opens”.  Basically, we may have to move on, but that doesn’t mean that we’ll have to lose ourselves along the way.

In Taylor Santos’ blog post, Butterflies, she talks about her love for dancing competitively and how it’s always been a significant part of her life.  College is a huge transition for everyone, no matter what their scenario is and it’s in everyone’s best interest to find something that they feel strongly enough to pursue.  In Taylor’s case, she wanted to immerse herself back into dancing.  It was her passion and it was where she felt her true self come out.  In her post, she talks about preparing for her audition for the dance team and how her “nerves were up the wall, so many questions running through [her] head” (Santos).  Feeling nervous before something like an audition is completely understandable.  Dancing is her life and one cannot just give something like that up and move on.  It is what makes her feel like she belongs.  Unlike Watson, her belonging isn’t a place, it’s an action.  Why wouldn’t she pursue dancing in college? In a way, dancing is her home.

Despite having found this home for herself in Easter Island, Catherine Watson does something interesting; she leaves.  It wasn’t that she did not love her beloved island anymore.  It wasn’t that at all.  Over the years, Easter had changed.  Whether it was all from tourist bombs or attempts to westernize the culture, it was no longer the place she’d fallen for when she arrived all those years before.  Easter Island was no longer her’s.  Yet, as much as the changes saddened her, she recognizes that it’s time for her to move on.  Many times throughout Where the Roads Diverged, she compares her time on the island to that of falling in passionate love.  Her decision to leave is akin to that of mutual ending of a long relationship; sadness but not bitterness.  Years later, she continues to look back on Easter Island with fondness and warmth, much like a first love.

In Taylor’s case, belonging was never really about the place but more so the action.  However, that does not mean that place isn’t necessarily a factor.  In her blog post, Butterflies, she mentions her old dance studio and how it was somewhere where she could really let loose and get into her groove, so to speak.  Unfortunately for her, leaving for college meant leaving behind her beloved dance studio as well.  Like Watson, Taylor was making a conscious decision to leave her old life behind and embark on finding a new place to call home.  Later on in her post, she brings up practicing in the dance studio here.  Expectedly, she felt a little strange at first, dancing in an unfamiliar room.  Yet with every step and every spin, she felt her inhibitions lower and her confidence rise.  Soon, she was dancing her heart out just as she had back home. 

Belonging doesn’t have to be a place, or a person, or even a thing.  Finding a home doesn’t necessarily mean staying in one place for the rest of your life.  Really, it’s all a state of mind.  We belong where we are happy, with what makes us happy, with what makes us feel alive.  As cliché as it sounds, home really is where the heart is, wherever and whenever.  Everyone deserves to feel that way.  Catherine Watson felt it in Easter Island and Taylor Santos felt it with her dancing.  At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how or when we come about it, or even if we stick with it.  All that matters is that we find it, that we cherish it.  To live life without finding that sense of belonging is to scarcely live at all.  Find your passions, find what you love, and above all, find where you belong.  Then, and only then, will you be able to discover who you really are.

Bibliography

Collisson, Brian. "The Social Projection of Belongingness and Needs." North American Journal of Psychology 15.3 (2013): 513-26. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Nov. 2014.

Enayati, Amanda. "The Importance of Belonging." CNN. Cable News Network, 01 June 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2014.