Gongol.com Archives: November 2024
November 15, 2024
A Chicago man, who long felt conflicted about the family in which he was raised, was able to uncover that he had been adopted as a child. And upon some genetic investigation, he discovered that his birth mother not only lived nearby -- she was the proprietor of a small bakery he frequented often enough that the owner (his birth mother) already knew him by name. Reunited with her now, the son is taking over the bakery's operations from his mother as she commences her retirement. ■ It's hard to imagine a story that could better distill the human urge to belong: Vamarr Hunter only went looking for his birth mother after succumbing to a feeling that he didn't rightly belong to the family he had known for his first 35 years. Then, upon discovering his genetic connection to someone with whom he already had a friendship, he changed his entire career path to fit in. ■ There's a reason that rituals like school homecomings and family reunions and retirement parties are so durable: They confirm that urge to belong and reinforce the binding ties among our different tribes. ■ With the exception of some extremely rare types who truly are confirmed loners, most people want to belong so instinctively and so strongly that we pick multiple identities -- around our schools, our workplaces, our faith traditions, our families, our citizenship, our interests, and even our entertainment choices. Swifties and Deadheads alike are not to be dismissed. ■ Smart people seeking to triumph over the challenges that confront humanity ought to take belonging into account, in many cases much more seriously than has often been the case in the past. It can rarely be forced artificially (see the common resentment of any number of "team-building" exercises in the workplace), but to be durable it has to grow out of something more than just a cult of personality. Personalities retire, fade away, and ultimately die. Belonging is an act that begins among people -- as few as just a mother and child. But there are few forces more powerful than the urge to be one of those who belong.
