Radical Belonging in an Age of Othering

Posted on Sep 29, 2024 in Uncategorized

Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino

Good Morning, Afternoon or Evening!

I put my paintbrush down long enough to read this very good article.

If you aren’t frightened by what is passing as “normal” and acceptable in today’s world, you aren’t living in the “othering” world I live in.

Hugs to each and every one of you.

Vicki


 

Radical Belonging in an Age of Othering

Joe Primo, Grateful Living

Realizing that I am, from the very beginning, embedded in a network of relationships makes me ready for an important insight: the innermost essence of the word “I” is relationship. ~Br. David Steindl-Rast, You Are Here

There is an epidemic of loneliness. The U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, says, “If we fail to build more connected lives…we will continue to splinter and divide until we can no longer stand as a community or a country.” As we try to understand this societal illness, I think we need to ask whether we are sick from loneliness or from not belonging — to each other and ourselves. 

In the depths of our isolation we quickly encounter a darkness. It is our world closing in on itself. Our entanglement with each other becomes disentangled. We are no longer woven. We are a single thread under tension, pulled taut. We are at risk of far more than fraying. 

John A. Powell, Director of the Othering and Belonging Institute, says that we create “othering” to create belonging. Think about this for a moment. In order to feel at home in ourselves and with others, we rally around contempt, prejudice, oppression, and exclusion. If we want to understand this epidemic, it seems that this may be a source of sickness. Could it be that our need to belong took a misguided route and fueled a pandemic of othering?

This pandemic of othering is sustained by binary thinking, which dismantles the inherent dignity of those different from us — religiously, racially, culturally, politically, intellectually, etc. Rather than thriving in relationship with each other, many groups find themselves in profound opposition. What is the point of this opposition? What are groups and people trying to protect? For some, it may be the comfort they find in their structure, order, and perspective. For some, it may be a desire to feel the nurturing and supportive sense of belonging, but the desire has become confused with fitting in. 

Belonging is where dignity, the sacred, and redemption meet. It is where you can be wholly you while also being in relationship with those wildly different from you. Belonging is a both/and.

It’s important to distinguish “fitting in” from belonging. They are two very different experiences. One has a gatekeeper and requirements. The other is innate. Fitting in asks us to mold ourselves to things like ideologies, appearances, and dogmas. You can fit in if you subscribe to the group’s prescriptions. Belonging, on the other hand, is not about being affirmed for your likeness to others or your methodical virtue-keeping. Belonging is not interested in groupthink and mutual pats on the back. 

The paradox of belonging is much like the paradox of love. Br. David Steindl-Rast says that “to live means to be in relationship” and that requires “love in action.” In order to put love into action and experience belonging, you also have to be at home in yourself. When you belong to yourself, you are better equipped to see, appreciate, and respect someone else’s dignity. This is because you can imagine, remember, or acknowledge the pain you’ve endured and how it has shaped your perspective and behavior — the unkind and hateful words that are only one grievance away from being spoken, the wars you might be tempted to fight if the opposition was on your stoop, the destruction you might cause if all the power was yours, the food you would steal for a child, the walls you might build if fear was your guidepost, the sicknesses that could fill your mind if you believed your fears. When you can imagine being othered then you can see the only path is understanding. 

Given the profound consequences of loneliness and isolation, we have an opportunity, and an obligation, to make the same investments in addressing social connection that we have made in addressing tobacco use, obesity, and the addiction crisis. ~Dr. Vivek Murthy

A grateful orientation to life is in opposition to othering. Rather than unifying around exclusions, a practice of grateful living challenges us to seek, observe, and understand (Stop. Look. Go) the many ways in which we are never fully alone, never independent or separate from others. The practice of grateful living helps us address the origin of our societal ailments because it illuminates our interconnectedness by focusing on and acknowledging the details of every lived moment and the network of people required to sustain our lives. This perspective understands that when we lose sight of our inter-relationality we can trust that everything will quickly go sideways, making us sick with fear, greed, violence, exploitation, loneliness, despair, and war. These and other detriments to our well-being fill the enormous cavern where belonging should live and thrive. 

To avoid falling into the trap of the rage machine or binary thinking, the practice of grateful living asks us to ground ourselves in the root belief that “life is a gift.” From this root, we grow a perspective that all people have inherent value. Rather than anyone being dispensable and disposable, we know that to be alive means to be in possession of something sacred. And when the sacred is not easily discoverable in another, gratefulness invites you to look more deeply for it like a hatchling in the grass. Stop. Look. Keep looking. When you’re tempted to quit, stop once again and look more. This is what it means to be alive — to be in relation and always on the lookout for all the opportunities to put love into action. 

If loneliness is a malady born from a plague that is unraveling our interconnectivity, then gratefulness is the only remedy large enough to treat an illness that is pulling us apart when life requires us to put love into action and remain in relation. 

This perspective challenges you to observe someone’s worth or worthiness, even when it is far from sight. Worthy of what, you might ask. Well, what are you worthy of in your life? Love, acceptance, safety, nourishment, shelter, redemption, and connection are a few things your dignity bestows on you. When we individually or collectively other, we strip people of this worthiness. We categorize people into good and bad, worthy and unworthy. We need to ask ourselves how anyone can survive these dichotomies. The response to loneliness and “othering” must be radical belonging — this is the challenge, this is the work of grateful living.

If loneliness is a malady born from a plague that is unraveling our interconnectivity, then gratefulness is the only remedy large enough to treat an illness that is pulling us apart when life requires us to put love into action and remain in relation. 

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I Am NOT Ill or Dead – Yet!

Posted on Jul 2, 2024 in Uncategorized

Dear Readers,
 
Since many of you have asked, it’s time I bring you up-to-date on why you haven’t been getting weekly posts from TalkingBittersweet.com.  
 
And… for those who inquired: thankfully I am not ill, and I am still alive. 
 
Currently I am spending more and more time in my painting studio, and I have started an art website: vickipanagotacosart.com. I will post occasionally on that site, about both my art and the creative “struggle.” If you aren’t interested you can opt out at that time.
 
I will still post on TalkingBittersweet 3-4 times a year and today I offer a terrific “Perfectionist” 
essay by Oliver Burkeman. It is a worthwhile read, and I intend to read it regularly!
 
I have had a wonderful time writing for TalkingGrief.com, TalkingBittersweet.com and maintaining the other websites over the past decades. But that chapter is closing.
 
I want to give a high-five to partner Jim Leung, who has been terrific at handling the tech I never wanted to learn! Without Jim there wouldn’t have been any Vicki Panagotacos online.
 
Take care,
Love,
Vicki
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On Giving a Fuck

Posted on Feb 4, 2024 in Uncategorized

Photo by Yunus Tuğ
Mandy Brown wrote a genius piece – in my opinion.
Enjoy! 
 
Ta ta,
Vicki

by Mandy Brown

 

I used to tell this story, about my theory of fucks. The theory goes like so: you are born with so many fucks to give. However many you’ve got is all there is; they are like eggs, that way. Some of us are born with quite a lot, some with less, but none of us knows how many we have. When we’re young, we go around giving a fuck about all kinds of things, blissfully unaware of our ever-dwindling supply. Until one day, we give the last fuck we’ve got, and we notice that the invisible bag of fucks we’ve been carrying around all these years is finally, irredeemably, empty. We have no more fucks left to give.

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Just a thought…

Posted on Dec 31, 2023 in Uncategorized

What makes life worth living? No child asks itself that question. To children life is self-evident. Life goes without saying: whether it is good or bad makes no difference. This is because children don’t see the world, don’t observe the world, don’t contemplate the world, but are so deeply immersed in the world that they don’t distinguish between it and their own selves. – Karl Knausgaard

 

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Critical Thinking

Posted on Dec 22, 2023 in Uncategorized

When critical thinking isn’t enough: to beat information overload, we need to learn ‘critical ignoring’

Ralph Hertwig, Director, Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development Anastasia Kozyreva, Cognitive scientist, Max Planck Institute for Human Development Sam Wineburg, Professor of Education and (by courtesy) History, Stanford University Stephan Lewandowsky, Chair of Cognitive Psychology, University of Bristol

The web is an informational paradise and a hellscape at the same time.

A boundless wealth of high-quality information is available at our fingertips right next to a ceaseless torrent of low-quality, distracting, false and manipulative information.

The platforms that control search were conceived in sin. Their business model auctions off our most precious and limited cognitive resource: attention. These platforms work overtime to hijack our attention by purveying information that arouses curiosity, outrage, or anger. The more our eyeballs remain glued to the screen, the more ads they can show us, and the greater profits accrue to their shareholders.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, all this should take a toll on our collective attention. A 2019 analysis of Twitter hashtags, Google queries, or Reddit comments found that across the past decade, the rate at which the popularity of items rises and drops has accelerated. In 2013, for example, a hashtag on Twitter was popular on average for 17.5 hours, while in 2016, its popularity faded away after 11.9 hours. More competition leads to shorter collective attention intervals, which lead to ever fiercer competition for our attention – a vicious circle.

To regain control, we need cognitive strategies that help us reclaim at least some autonomy and shield us from the excesses, traps and information disorders of today’s attention economy.

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