I’ve shared this verbally, almost verbatim, with several friends at this point. I figured I’d just write it up, since clearly it comes up and I have a lot of clarity around it.
A lot of my last 5 years has been oriented around getting in touch with my desires - what do I want, what do I like, particularly in terms of place. Questions like “where do I want to be, what’s been my favorite place, where would I want to settle” have persistently floated around and within me.
One of the most impactful things of the last 5 years has been repairing my relationship with my mom, which has shifted enormously. Beyond the sweetness of the improved relationship (2+ years ago we couldn’t go more than a day or 2 without getting into a vicious argument, now we can live together for a month harmoniously and it’s a pleasure), it’s hard to overstate how much it’s improved my life. Some of the more straightforward things to point at are how it’s mostly eliminated my harsh self criticism, and given me a gateway to sacredness and divinity.
A way that’s been percolating in me for months now is how it’s changed my relationship to those who came before me.
For most of my life, the way that I related to those who came before me was with low level disdain and resentment. Like “yeah great thanks and now I/we gotta clean up your mess, whether it’s climate change or intergenerational trauma or something else”.
It feels like it’s still in the process of shifting, but already it’s 180’d, mostly from going through old baby photos a few times and weeping for an hour at a time.
Starting with my family, the way I now relate to those who came before me is with a loss of words, with awe, with overwhelming gratitude. How can I be the recipient of such an overwhelming, incomprehensible magnitude of love from my parents, and from their parents before them? I still feel like I’ve only scratched the surface. I’m the recipient of countless generations of love in an unbroken chain flowing to me, love that I’ve done nothing to deserve, nor my parents before. It’s a miracle, it’s divine grace. It is my honor and privilege to receive so much from them, to count myself among them, and to continue their legacy and pay it forward. My ancestors are giants that I get to stand on the shoulders of.
I feel this from my culture too, crying while eating food at Chinese restaurants listening to mandopop. There is so much love that has come down the generations in the simple act of eating a home cooked dish. I feel this longing to connect more to those roots whenever I hear a song with erhu.
In my return to LA, as I’ve volunteered time and energy to help the college students that are restarting my fraternity, I’ve felt this too. I have nothing to personally gain from getting them together, I’m showing up from a place of service, for their benefit. As have thousands of brothers before me, who have stewarded our house and our traditions for hundreds of years. There’s something really beautiful and moving to feeling myself in part of that lineage, even if it’s a modest one.
I even have this with my relationship to the US broadly, though it’s still more intellectual at this point than felt. That any of this works at all - sewage, roads, elected representatives, power lines, etc. - is a goddamn miracle, and the work of millions of people over generations. The project of democracy is a noble one, one that my people have contributed their time, energy, and ultimately love into, to help this shared project of being together, together, in society. For me to contribute to the project of governance today is only possible by standing on the shoulders of the millions of people that have come before me.
So with all this brewing, I watched Lion King on my flight back to the states a few months ago, and cried half of the time. The question that stuck out most to me in the wake of that was “Where is Johnson’s place in the circle of life? Where do I most belong, where am I most called to serve?”
Because I’m actually part of many lineages, from my family to my culture to my government to my hometown to my college to my fraternity and so on. I probably can’t carry on the legacy of all of them simultaneously (?), so what feels most right for me to honor, by my actions?
My first month back in LA has been impactful and insightful for me. A sense that I’ve been sitting with has been “I am wanted here”.
A major catalyst was the time I shared with the young men restarting the fraternity. The appreciation that I received from working with them, the emotional thank you’s, the gag gift, the signed card, in which one person wrote that it’s been their favorite moment of college so far. The appreciation I received from my friend, their chapter advisor, who also, in a way, represents the alumni broadly, his hope that I can be around next semester as well. I’ve come away from this time feeling valued and wanted.
In conversations with friends, a few have shared that they’re glad that I’m back. At least some of my friends want me here.
The civic infrastructure wants me here - this democracy wants me to engage with it, to vote, to contribute to it, this shared project of living together.
It’s been moving to feel wanted here. Not that I’m super wanted, not that LA is the only place that I feel wanted. But it touches something deep. Part of my leaving LA in the first place was, in a way, feeling that I wasn’t wanted or needed, that things would go on fine without me and everyone would be just as happy, at the micro level of my relationships and at the macro level of society. I carry a deep tenderness here, an insecurity, “do my friends, the people I love and care about, do they want me around? Do they care if I’m around?” With some of the friends I care about most, I continue to carry this insecurity, because I don’t feel wanted, I’m not convinced that their lives are meaningfully improved by my being around.
But now I’m with this question of “where and with whom am I wanted?” And when I pair that with the questions I’ve been with since setting out, “where do I want to be?” - this pairing of questions feels like a concrete way to frame “where is Johnson’s place in the circle of life?” This bidirectional, mutual wanting, where I want and am wanted, that’s one meaningful way to describe interdependence, embeddedness, belonging. Where else would I be other than with the places and the people that most want me and that I most want?
Finally, after years of following, honoring, experimenting with my desires, wants, preferences, I feel quite good and clear about what I like and want. I have a clear sense of self. And now I start to sit with the other side of it - “where am I wanted?”
Burgeoning now is “how do I create wanting? What do I do, how do I show up in such a way that people actively want me around?” I suspect this will involve an evolution in how I relate to work.
I’m excited to see where these questions take me.
Great post, I find this very relatable, finding my people, where I'm wanted/liked/appreciated/feel I belong (and towards whom I feel the same), is one of the most alive challenges for me, though I suspect I'm behind you on this path. Being unabashedly liked is a great feeling, as is being appreciated for expressing the gifts that I most want to be appreciated for by people I trust to have a good taste in this.
I'm also pleasantly surprised with your turning a bit towards "what do others want from me", as I disliked you a bit in our brief encounter in NYC perceiving you as too self-focused for my taste for more other-focused and considerate people. There's still a bit too much *I*-ness even in this post for my sense of ideal balance on this (which is likely different from yours), but it's cool to see more overlap now with your pondering more belonging/community/*we*-ness themes here.
I enjoyed your "work" post as well, though to me it came off even more *I*-focused than this one, I wonder if that's a well-founded perception reflecting your evolution between then and now.
>“Where is Johnson’s place in the circle of life? Where do I most belong, where am I most called to serve?”
"Commitment" is the word that this brought up to me that connects to what I perceived as your limited attunement to issues of identity in the "work" post. To me "fluid identity" sounds like "I'm not yet sure of who I am, where is my place in the world, what tradition I'm part of, what causes and values are dearest to me, what people share (some of) them that I choose to be around and commit to, what path I'm choosing to devote myself to". From these posts, I don't really perceive you as identity-less: being a "vagrant", "fucking around", "doing what I want" are quite specific choices implying quite specific values and identity to me, as are your apparent interests and involvement in alt-community-building and alt-healing of self and others. I understand you might not be committed to them yet to own them as an "identity", yet imo making those choices and spending years pursuing them will be a layer of who you are/who you become regardless.
I was a bit confused by your section on “work as a source of meaning and purpose". Sure meaning is subjective and internally made, but that doesn't imply "whatever goes". In my read you find some things more meaningful (community-building, intimate relationships, giving ifs/coaching sessions) and some less ("writing code"). For many people the key tradeoff to resolve with career choice is between doing something they like and/or find meaningful, and the rewards society offers for it. I guess you're privileged enough to not face that tradeoff (which also might make the choice harder, "too much freedom with too few constraints"), but might still be facing other ones: accessing good options, finding a community of like-minded comrades.