Detachment, the Relative Speed of Time, and Some Other Things
Shanqin Bay, Hainan Island, China, February 5th, 2013
Salaroche


Time marches on with relative speed according to our individual perception. For example, how long would 64 years of life seem to you? To some people, such amount of time might seem like an eternity. For some of us, however, 64 years don’t seem like much, but rather like the flash of a lightning.

Yesterday I was there, living the first, or the fifth, or the twentieth, or the fortieth year of my life, and suddenly I find myself here today, living my sixty-fourth. What has happened in the meantime? Maybe lots of things but, from the perspective of this moment, all of it now appears like a light dream, like the dream of a short nap.

And what about the travels and the people and the experiences and all the different things? By now it all seems like a movie that was continuously projected before my eyes. And what about the memories and the feelings? All that is also like the memory of a dream, a dream that may have sometimes been very intense, but still just that: A dream.

And all along that dream I have always experienced the same feeling: Anywhere I am, anywhere I go, I always know I'm just there passing by, that even if I learn to sail the waters upon which my sailboat might be sailing at the time, I will never fully belong anywhere, because, as hard as I may try, I will never get to feel like a part that really fits well within whatever environment may surround me.

This has led me to conclude that my sense of not belonging is closely related to my perception of time and circumstances as ephemeral. In other words, if in my perception the existence of anything that may happen at any time is specifically limited to that particular moment in time and if I know that any event I may witness or experience will eventually become only a memory, what degree of attachment could I aspire to develop within me if from my perspective everything will be reduced to a memory just a short time after having experienced it?

Of course, my guitar, or the sea, or my computer, or China, or my friends, they all have an existence of their own, but not the experiences I live with them. The duration of my experiences with them is limited to the time I spent living those experiences. For this reason, I am aware that, for example, my sojourn in Hainan Island is not permanent, but only something that in a few days will become just another memory.

And even if I were to stay in Hainan for a few months or years, I am aware that sooner or later I would have to leave this land and move on to another, or simply leave this planet once and for all.

But, in a somewhat more mundane level, the root of that feeling of "belonging" or "not belonging" seems to have some interesting implications. For example, some psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists may argue that the pursuit of "belonging" has always been part of that famous survival instinct that through history has been essential to human evolution. This would mean that, at the bottom, humans are gregarious because of their pure self-interest in safeguarding their own personal survival.

We could say, then, that at this point in time the instinct of belonging is something that may already be ingrained in our DNA. But what could be inferred in learning that there are some, or many, of us whose instinct to belong has never been a fundamental part of their existence? I mean, how come some of us don’t want to, or are unable to, follow those daily social rituals needed to get to belong to some group of people or some part of the world?

Well, in accepting that the instinct of belonging is part of the survival instinct we are basically accepting that, at the heart of this issue, is the preservation of individuality as something irreducible. The individual precedes society, which means that society is but an instrument created by a variety of individuals in order to preserve and promote the safety and the interests of the individual himself.

But times change and with them our instincts are supposed to gradually change as well, at least those of some of us. From the point of view of society, the world no longer resembles that hostile environment that existed during, say, the middle ages, or the times of the Roman Empire, or the Mayan civilization, let alone the time of Neanderthal, etc.

Today it is no longer necessary to have a very active social life to survive, even to survive in an acceptable manner. The life of the modern individual is no longer constantly threatened to the extent of having to belong to a group or to a particular territorial area to preserve our vital security. The vast majority of us always need a certain degree of interaction with our peers to lead a fulfilling life, but that level of interaction is not determined by any universal measure, nor by any irrepressible rule irresistibly dictating our conduct.

Nowadays, most of us look to associate with other people for two primary reasons: 1) To affirm our identity and our appreciation of ourselves by creating bonds with people who have characteristics and qualities similar to ours and, 2) to establish relationships with people whose contribution to the relationship will bring us personal benefits, whether economic, social, political, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, etc.

Today, then, the interest of the individual continues to abide at the heart of our "need" to belong, but in a way that is maybe a bit more complex than it used to be. Today, the instinct to belong is channeled to meet needs of a second order, as would be some of the things mentioned in point # 2 above. Any social activity still revolves around the interests of the individual, but the interest in question is no longer limited to basic survival.

This, however, does not imply that the search for our own identity has never been an essential element propelling our herd instinct. Had it not been so, ethnicity wouldn’t still be one of the most decisively unifying social factors as far as the identity of the individual is concerned. For example, the question "Who am I"? is usually resolved spontaneously according to the physical characteristics of the questioner. When an individual meets another who has the same physical characteristics, the two of them reaffirm their identity in an essential and spontaneous manner.

Then there is the question of language, geographic area of ​​origin, religion, ideology, education, philosophy, sports, gender, and other factors that provide different groups of people with reasons enough to feel part of the same group. "I see myself reflected in you", they think to themselves, "therefore I know who I am".

But what happens when some individuals lack high levels of attachment to some basic features of that kind? For example, what happens when ethnicity, nationality, language or religion are not factors that determine the identity of an individual within himself?

Well, what happens is basically two things: 1) that the individual in question will find it hard to feel like an integral part of any group of people or geographic area, and 2) that, consequently, the individual concerned may find it rather easy to adjust in a convenient manner to just about any group of people or almost any geographic area that they may come across.

It is worth remembering that the terms "feeling" and "knowledge" are not synonymous. The former very rarely equals to the latter. Not feeling like an integral part of any group does not automatically entail a lack of knowledge of the ethnic or religious elements unifying the different groups. Similarly, feeling like a constantly migrating bird in the different countries does not automatically imply the absence of some degree of knowledge of the history or the geographic characteristics of those countries. In other words, the feeling of "not belonging" is not equivalent to the feeling of "not being aware", nor is it to the feeling of  "not knowing". "Not belonging" does not equal to "being disoriented" either.

For example, the other night, while sitting at the table sharing dinner with a dozen Chinese people, I was one hundred percent aware of being there only in passing and very conscious of the fact that, just a few hours later, that experience would become just another memory. But that didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the moment, or the tasty vegetables, or the delicious sweet and sour taste of the fish, or the beer with which my Chinese friends did repeatedly toast.

I felt good under my own skin and within my own mind and, despite the limitations imposed on us by the language barrier, I exchanged comfortably well with the reality that filtered through my senses. And the traditional and ethnic differences existing  between my dining companions and I did not bother me in the least, on the contrary, they were sometimes a source of laughter and jokes from their part as much as from my own.

Could we say, then, that the feeling of "not belonging" anywhere is in some way equivalent to the feeling of "belonging" everywhere? Could we say that the fact of not having much attachment to any particular ethnic group contributes largely to the fact of not feeling too much like an outsider when surrounded by people of entirely different ethnicities? Well yes, I think so.

But in my own particular case, what else could be expected? If even through my childhood and my adolescence I constantly experienced the very same feeling of "not belonging" anywhere, how could we expect me not to experience that same feeling now during my adult life and later in my old age? Especially now that I'm traveling a bit around the world?

In my view, the absence of attachments carries with it the absence of the feeling of "belonging", just as the absence of attachments also accelerates the relative speed of time. And that's why the detachment that I have experienced all through my life has turned out to be like some kind of good fortune for me in the long run.

Would I suggest that you practice detachment to things, people, and circumstances in general? Well, as is often the case in reference to most human activities and interests, falling on the extremes usually means falling in error. But a reasonable degree of detachment to everything might be recommended to some of us and might even be healthy to everyone.

And the ship sails on.

Salaroche