I don't want to belong anymore

I don't want to belong any more. In fact, it goes further than that: I don't want to want to belong any more. It is exhausting. I talk often about community, collaboration, family, connection and love. And yet, so often, when I find a community and step into it, however lovely it looks, I find it built on division. On them and us. I cannot take it any more. I am sick of people who hurt other people. I am sick of being manipulated, of watching other people manipulated, and of having it assumed that I want to manipulate others, simply because people see what they are. “Whose group are you in?” they ask. “Whose side are you on?” Maybe not in those exact words.

I cannot bear watching people's anger turn them into the very cruelty they are fighting, as the inequity of this society takes hold of them and they lose the empathy needed to see the other side. They cannot see the privilege they hold, or the struggles and the trauma of others. They stop weighing the things that matter, stop responding with compassion, stop meeting people with the generous assumption that they mean well. My sadness overwhelms me watching people clamour for attention, for the biggest accolade, for glory, for the authority, for being the one in the right. Even the people who set out to teach empathy, compassion, respect, divergence and inclusion are so shaped by this poisonous society that they need to be the expert in, say, empathy — and in chasing that they lose empathy altogether, sacrificing it to the gods of success and recognition.

I am not immune to any of it. When we see things that hurt, frustrate and anger us, we have to look inward and work those traits through in ourselves. I have wanted people to take my side. I have wanted to be the authority. I have felt that someone else's success meant my failure. I have lost sight of the real goal while chasing the appearance of success. I have lashed out in anger when I was hurt, or when something felt unjust.

Now it stops. As far as I can make it stop. I refuse to take sides, and I refuse to stand by while people hurt others. I refuse to put being more than somebody else ahead of helping somebody else do better, and be freer. I refuse to let my joy in raising other people up be soured by anyone who wants to take advantage of it. I refuse to be less than myself, to shrink, to mask my difficulties, to dam my compassion, or to conform, just so that I can belong somewhere.

People don't understand me. People don't agree with me. People don't like me. And that's okay. Because I understand me. I have courage in my convictions. I like me. And I know I am not alone. The people who count do not require me to share their opinions, and do not need me to belong in order to love me.