Belonging
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A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.
— Kurt Vonnegut
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A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.
— Jorge Luis Borges
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After a few minutes of conscious breathing, I close my eyes and listen to everything I can hear: my own breathing, refrigerator hum, the occasional car passing, birds starting to chirp around 5:20 this time of year. Then, as my imagination gets more involved, I start to “hear” what I think of as the hum of the cosmos underneath it all. The slow voice of the divine?
For my purposes, how much of this hum is imagined doesn’t matter. I can feel it permeate my senses. It’s as though everything were humming with life, not just organic beings. It gives me the feeling that I can hear a little of the cosmos going about its business, with me a tiny part of it.
— Dr Craig Chalquist
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You belong. Everywhere. Yes, you — with all your history, anxiety, pain. Yes, everywhere — in every culture, community, circumstance. You belong in this body. You belong in this very moment. You belong in this breath…and this one. You have always belonged.
— Sebene Selassie
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Not belonging is our secret worry, not belonging to our society, our family even, and that feeling follows us as we keep trying to earn membership in a culture of separation and judgment. School and then work life are based on reward and punishment. The worst punishment is ostracism. Our fate rides on a feeling of connection or the lack thereof. We are wounded so early that we hold a secret fear of betrayal as we ourselves commit the same sins and transgressions.
In this way we abandon the lives that need us. The family of living beings is torn to shreds across the planet because we don’t feel we belong and we don’t care. We have learned…