The Attitude Lounge with Kodwo Brumpon: Belongingness

“One does not love if one does not accept from others.” – Nigerian proverb

The trend of ‘rights’ and the rise of the ‘self’ in our age is inspiring many of us to be content with enjoying the benefits of belonging to a family, group or society without burdening ourselves with the responsibility of being part of it.

More and many of us are avoiding accountability for the challenges and drifts of society, yet we gladly share in the booties. The inclination is to label certain activities and behaviours within the communal culture as awkward or outdated; thereby excusing ourselves from taking part in them.

This might not sound so good for quite a number of us; but to be human, you need to belong. We are social beings first and foremost before we are individuals. What we need to appreciate is that our belongingness to families, groups and societies is not just to fulfil a sociological urging. It is more fundamental for our thrive. We are who we are because of others; we are fundamentally united in each other so that we may live with each other and for each other.

Our lives are bound to the lives of other people. You came into existence through others; you are what you are because of other people and your future would be dependent on others. We are, because we all belong and belongingness is what keeps us sane and going. It is so ingrained in us that in actuality it is one of the things we cannot take away from ourselves.

We belong and the urge to belong keeps us belonging to one another. All of us at some point do not to think belongingness because doing so would require us to submit to the demands of the communal culture or accede to the sovereignty traditions and customs. And so whenever it suits us; we redefine belongingness from a sociological given to a private opinion.

We forget that the choices we leave out, says so much about us, as those things we include. Such an attitude shows a disjuncture between reality and illusion. Whenever you take that stand, you are losing the connexion between the head and the heart.

What is life if we only live it to suit our selfish impulses? Life is about everyone and everything at every point in time. It is about how we long for each other till we belong to each other. That is why you have to understand that the fullness of our lives thrives on the fullness of our belonging.

It is this simple reason that invokes the need to make a conscious decision and also desire to attempt the re-connexion of the head and the heart to belong as societies grow so that how we behave will animate our actions and our actions will confirm our humanity.

As with most ideals of life where we equate one concept with another, quite a surprising majority of us equate belongingness as agreement. This is not the case. We belong simply because we are human. We do not belong because we agree with each other.

Seeing as how unique we all are as individuals, it would be virtually impossible for all of us to agree on any one issue. The idea of belongingness basically revolves round the premise that I am because you are, and you are because we all are. Belongingness is a realistic drama that tells us of origins and destinies.

It has the function of connecting us with each other, through each other with what before seem to have no apparent relationship. For example you are connected to me even though you may not have met me in physical reality because you are reading my understanding of life which I learned from people, some of whom I have never met and would never meet. That is the beauty of belongingness.

The main obstacle to belongingness is the propaganda that the part is more important than the whole. We are being schooled that the ‘self,’ the individual is the essence of his or her existence. This mentality is creating cracks in the communal structure of our humanity.

Belongingness directs our relationships, aspirations and inspirations from our conception to our demise. It reminds us that in life, happiness comes from finding our kinsfolk and savouring the communal sense of purpose. All the utopian rhetoric about changing the world; rest in part on resurrecting our beat-down and bankrupt sense of belongingness.

The call for belongingness is a call for compassion rather than criticism, for empathetic rather than unacquaintedness, for harmony rather than hostilities, for smiles rather than frowns, for hugs rather than waves, and love rather than fear.

It is when we fully come to grasp with our belongingness that we would spend less resources on the machinery of pleasure and more on the machinery of caring and attending to the less privileged and disadvantaged in the diverse areas of life.

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