Belonging Somewhere

I don’t like to talk much about it, but my teenage days simply sucked. I was bored at home. I was bored at school. Most people saw me as the smart nerdy guy even though my marks were passable at best. Most importantly, it felt like I had no deep connection with anyone or anything. The only thing I wanted was to go back home and watch animes or read visual novels, especially when I was in middle-school.

Adolescence is a difficult time, mostly because you don’t feel understood. For me, what was painful was how I felt that I didn’t belong anywhere. It was like I couldn’t find my place in the world and school or home made me both feel that way.

Now that I think about it, I realize that many of the artistic works that have a deep meaning for me are related to those questions : what is it to find a place where you belong ? Is it actually possible ? What happens if you don’t ?

How I discovered this feeling

My first true contact with the otaku world was through Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu. It was a revolution to me and still is one of my favorite anime of all the time, which I watch religiously almost every two or three years. I was only 8 when I saw it for the first time so obviously I couldn’t explain why I was so mesmerized by this anime. Now, I realize that this melancholy that characterizes Haruhi is more or less the same that I have felt for a good part of my life.

I always knew it was more than just a funny or weird anime. One scene in particular that caught my attention, and that I found even more breathtaking in the light novel, is the part where, on a whim, Haruhi finally explain to Kyon how life seems meaningless to her. The experience of going to a baseball game and realizing how many people are living in this world and how they all share the same ordinary and dull life is presented as a turning point of her life, which will have a brutal impact on her psyche. After this revelation, she starts to loose foot with the real world. Everything starts to fade away. She doesn’t feel that she belongs in this life, with her family or her classmates. In the end, I finally realized that this feeling of emptiness that she was trying to convey, this “melancholy” was the same that I was feeling at this moment.

If you really try to look at it closely, most characters in this anime are sharing this same feeling. None of them are able to find a place where they belong. Asahina Mikuru doesn’t belong to this temporality. Nagato Yuki doesn’t belong to this planet at all.

Kyon most of all seems to hate the SOS-dan and feels like he doesn’t belong here. The first and the second seasons events are showed in a way that makes us feel like he is just following Haruhi around, while wishing for a quiet, normal life.

This is not just a whacky show about a crazy girl doing dumb things. Its a deep, philosophical depiction of depression.

The whole story is not so bleak though, for there is always a place for hope. Haruhi is taking the matter in hands by creating SOS-dan : a place where she belongs, a group of friends to have fun with and to go on crazy adventures, looking out for aliens, espers and time travelers, without knowing that they are all already apart of the band.

Even Kyon, who is always complaining about Haruhi’s bad behavior, end up liking this place. In the beginning of the movie “The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi”, Kyon states that there is an unknown force driving him to the club’s room. He can’t explain why he is still going there everyday, even though he has no interest in the SOS-dan. Later, the fact that he wakes up in a world where this club doesn’t exist because Haruhi never attended his highschool develops into a dilemma : staying in this “perfect” world or going back to the crazy life he has since he encountered Haruhi and became a member of the SOS-dan. This choice leads us to the best part of the movie : Kyon’s introspection, depicted in a dialog he has with himself, where he finally admit that, even though he was always complaining, he actually had fun and prefer this strange and crazy life he had with Haruhi rather than the plain, boring life he seemed to long for.

Looking for Answers

Seeking a place where you belong seems to be a commonplace in the “coming out of age” works. As I said before, being a teenager is a complex part of our lives where we both try to conform to social norms and to understand who we truly are, without realizing that those goals contradicts themselves. However, I don’t think those problems only occurs when you are in middleschool or in highschool. The early twenties are also a time when you constantly questions yourselves: am I doing the right choice ? What will happen to me in the future ? Is it what I truly want ? Do I belong in this field of studies, do I belong in this town, do I belong in this relationship ? Do I belong in this workfield and why am I so scared to do the same job all my life ? All of those can be overwhelming, especially with the social pressure of being “successful” as early as possible and with the fear of living forever a plain, boring and unsatisfying life. Of course, all of these questions and fears are legit, because just like the teenage years, the early twenties is a period marked by many choices and drastic changes in life, before reaching the stability of the late twenties-early thirties.

In the end, seeking a place where you belong is a way to look out for answers. This can take many forms : meeting new people, moving out, running away…

This is the main theme of two of my favorite songs, one of them being “Fast Car” by the American singer Tracy Chapman. This song depicts the daily life of a young woman who works in a convenience store and try to save up money to change her life. However, she is tied to her town by her dad who is living alone, not working and drinking all day. While she tries to do her best to pay the bill and help her dad, she is also dreaming of running away with a lover who owns a “fast car” that they could use to drive to another city and start a new life.

“You got a fast car

Is it fast enough so we can fly away ?

We gotta make a decision

Leave tonight or live and die this way”

The narrator is at a turning point of her life. She knows that they both have to make a decision now or to spend the rest of their life in a place where they are both unhappy. For me, this encapsulates clearly the feeling that we have at the most important moments of our live. Belonging somewhere is not just about fitting in a case, its a quest, both for a place and for our identity. You don’t stumble upon a place where you belong per hazard, you need to find out who you are to know where you truly belong. For the narrator in this song, it’s not just about moving to another city, it is about the feeling of freedom she gets in this fast car, the endless possibility it offers to her.

“So I remember when we were driving, driving in your car

Speed so fast it felt like I was drunk

City lights lay out before us

And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder

And I-I had a feeling that I belonged

I-I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone”

To belong somewhere and to be someone are overlapping in this passage, showing us that finding a place made for you is the same as finding who you are. Growing up is shifting and discovering many things about you, sometimes things we didn’t even suspect to be apart of us. However, sometimes, just like plants can’t grow because of the lack of water and light, our surroundings can oppress us and stop us to “be someone”, just like the narrator’s dad in this song. If adolescence and the early twenties are such a weird moment of our life, it is also because we are slowly but surely leaving the nest, deciding what is good for us instead of trying to answer other people expectations. I am not saying that we should all be profoundly egoistic and individualist people but in the end, if we only have one life and if it truly belong to us, we need to make a choice and to take the matter in our own hands, to reach this place where we belong. Sometimes, some choices will be difficult. Sometimes, we will regret we didn't act sooner. But in the end, we have to do it, for our own sake.

Places I belong to

On a more optimistic note, here is a list of places I feel like I belong to. I’m not going to lie : it might not be interesting to read. However, I think it could be a good exercise to do on your own. It may help you to figure out where you are in your life.

First of all, the town where I am living now. It is the perfect size for someone like me who wants to have all of the city commodities and the feeling of belonging to a community. Since the town is not too big, I can easily stumble upon people I know, friends or family, recognize the face of some people I’ve never talked to but that often cross the same streets as I do. It makes me feel at home. Plus, the architecture is breathtaking and the town is clean. It’s a good place.

Secondly, there would be the town where I was born. Its a one hour drive from where I live and I like to spend the weekends here every few months. There is something peculiar about this place. It is like it was never touched by the recent historical events. As I walk down the streets, I can see many stores that look like they belong to the 90s. Most people look like my parents, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins. It’s certainly because we are all born in the same area. This, too, makes me feel at home and brings me joy. It’s good to know where you come from.

Last but not least, there would be Tokyo. This may sound weird as I don’t really enjoy big cities, but there is something special about Tokyo. It’s huge and there are so many people in the streets but some districts and some suburbs cities are comfy, like the district around Higashi-Mukojima or like Fuchu. There are many reasons why I enjoyed my two trips in Tokyo and why I would love to live there, which I will detail in a post dedicated to my experience. Most importantly, it was the first city where I walked in the streets with make up and while cross-dressing, which was a way for me to embrace who I am and to feel true utter freedom. There is one maid café in Akiba where I specially felt I belonged to : I’m not giving out the name but everyone was so nice and no interaction felt fake for the whole time. Meeting people who shares the same views as you, the same hobbies as you can be a way to define who you are too and that is what happened to me in Tokyo.

In Conclusion

Even if life is full of struggles and questions, I truly believe that we can all find a place where we belong. No matter who you are, no matter what you like, we are so many in this wide world that you can always connect with people that share the same passion and the same lifestyle. It's not always going to be easy and sometimes, just like Haruhi or just like the narrator in Tracy Chapman's song, we need to stand up and to take action or the consequence will be a bleak life that we can't be proud of. I think that moments in our life when we doubt about who we are and where we belong are essential for us to understand ourselves and to meet people that will fill our life with happiness. This may sounds candid, but I truly think this is true.

For this exact reason, one of the first advice I always give to people when they are asking me for life tips is to join a community, to find a group of people who share the same interest as you. We are social creatures, what Aristotle calls "zoon politikon" (I know it's translated as "political animal" but the politikon here refers to the polis, as an extension of the family, I feel like it describes us more as being apart of society than belonging to a political state) and as such we need to connect with other people to feel complete, to feel happiness. If you question yourself about who you are and where you belong, you will always end up wondering about the kind of person you want to live with. Meet people who shares your hobbies, your style, your dreams and realize that you are not alone !

This might be the true reason why I ended up loving Tokyo so much. Seeing people of any age, any genders, loving the same games, the same characters, the same works of art that I love filled me with joy. Meeting with people who shares the same interests, talking with them, laughing with them, this truly made me feel that I belonged there. I hope you will all feel this happiness one day.