I have just gotten back from a bus trip that took 22 hours from Saskatoon. I was out for a good friend's wedding and I had to make the decision of paying an extra $200 to take a flight or take the bus ride. I had to go with making the financially wiser choice and go with the bus.
People were commenting that it must have been a terrible thing to do and I agree to a point. I just agree in the moment and it is true that I dislike the long bouts of sitting, however, it was ultimately really good. I was reminded of how much I actually enjoy the process of travelling from one place to another. The destination is the point I suppose, but I appreciate the period of moving from one place to another. I get to sit there and think. I get to listen to my music and reflect. I come up with ideas for the future.
The long bus ride allowed just for more time of doing that. It also provided a couple of experiences that I appreciated just as much as the actual wedding event. On the way out there, I had a few hours in Calgary and it just so happened that a friend there happened to have a shift at a store downtown and I got to see her and talk with her, when I haven't spoken to her in what has been far too long.
On the way back, I was in Calgary and I went to a local restaurant to get food and to read a theology book ("The Cost of Discipleship" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer) when I encountered a couple of friendly strangers and we wound up talking about life and spirituality.
It seemed like these two encounters really encapsulates how I feel like in general. More and more I feel like a stranger in a strange land wherever I go. Even the people and places once familiar to me, have changed and evolved. While in Saskatoon, I was catching up with people and spending time with old friends and it was a little weird. There were moments where I felt like I didn't fit anymore. Other times, just the reality of people continuing to live their lives made me just realize how truly free I feel to continue to wander.
Let me explain that last sentence further. Some people, perhaps most people or even all people at different points in their life, see familiarity as prime importance. That we huddle up with people we like and build each other up and strengthen the community. We fear leaving because we will have wasted relationships that we had built. As a human race, we seek to cling. It's a good thing. It allows us to dig into each other's lives and hopefully help each other out (and pray it does not go the other way into gossip). We live together (and die alone because the Lost reference must be used). It's how societies work. It doesn't matter what cultural background you come from, their is always an interdependence somewhere in the culture. Some focus on familial connections or community connections or faith-based or tribe-based, but every culture has it.
In any culture, you are going to have deviants to the structure. I feel very much like one of the deviants outside of the community. I reminded fairly frequently that I am fine with that. Mostly circumstance has created it I suppose, but even people who are outside a community wish to be apart of it (except for those who are like me and embrace it as oppose to fight it).
That said, I understand the importance of community. I get why we do team exercises at camps. Sometimes it feels like I get the point better than those who believe that community is of the utmost importance and go all gung ho into team exercises. I get that we need connections to other people. We need to be grounded from our own headspace, imaginations, selfishness and pride.
However, I feel like I get that from conversing with people that I meet at a random restaurant or from touching base with folk on occasion. I learn from people and their experiences and what brings them to now. I find the more familiar I get with people, the more alien I feel around them.
There are exceptions to this. There are some individuals that I feel like I could spend all day with and I could see them the next day and not feel like it would be difficult, but in terms of bigger groups I would say that I don't get that chummy feeling that others get. I just kind of go along with it. I suppose it's closely related to how I feel like a town is a town is a town. I don't hate or love Minnedosa. Or Winnipeg. Or Nelson. Or Vancouver. I've been finding nationalism more and more weird.
In essence, it's like I fit everywhere, but I fit nowhere and I'm fine with that. The troubling thing is that others are not. They think there's something wrong. Maybe there is. I realize (and others have pointed out) that this would be very difficult to bring someone close to me, specifically someone that I could marry. This is the tension I feel because I would love an ally to go with me on my journey to bring hope and hold loosely onto the world, but not a lot of women (and people in general) are geared like me and I can't expect that out of them. It's likely, I either cave and join in (like I tried before) or I continue to wander.
Ultimately, I don't have an answer. I am not sure of what to do, but I also feel like I have bigger priorities anyway. I am not worrying about this. I am not looking for a solution. I am not even saying I will think like this forever. Maybe something will change everything.
"Like most babies smell like butter
His smell smelled like no other
He was born scentless and senseless
He was born a scentless apprentice"
- "Scentless Apprentice" from the Nirvana album "In Utero"
No comments:
Post a Comment