Following a post in which I explained that I found the mathematics community to be closed and indifferent to those who didn't understand anything about maths, I got a handful of replies pointing out that “my community” (meaning the music community, or the guitarists' community, or the French rock community) was also very closed. I was quite surprised because I never felt like I was part of any of these circles, or in fact any of the other circles in which I have been involved.
Job
I have had many different activities in my life, very different ones indeed. Some were well paid, others less so. Some required isolation, others, on the contrary, had to be done in front of as many people as possible in order to be successful. Some were done in silence, others with music, some required a special place, others could be done anywhere. But, for me, they all had one thing in common: I never felt I belonged to a profession, a corporation, a collective. I always had the same feeling of being a bit of a sit-between-two-chairs. It was and is beyond me: I have a job, an activity (teacher, webmaster, musician, journalist) and I can't fit in with the codes, fashions, habits and customs of the different worlds and professions I find myself in. I always feel uncomfortable in the suit. I can't do it, I cannot embrace the whole package, there are always too many things that don't suit me, that prevent me from...
Sometimes it's down to stupid and nasty corporatism: “I don't know, I don't understand, I don't really know the case but... I'm backing the guy because he does the same job as me”. Or: “I know this guy, he's a dirty bastard, he's sick, he's incompetent but he does the same job as me, so I'm sticking up for him”. Well, I'm sorry, I can't and... it shows... even on my face. I can't support someone based on this simple criteria of brotherhood. It's the same thing for what we now call “gender”. I am a man, there's no doubt about it, but nights out with the lads, long discussions about the girls, memories of military service, feet under the table, binge drinkin' parties and dick competitions are not my thing at all.
Family
As far as family is concerned, I never had the feeling of being part of a clan. My family are my close relatives, it's always been that way. In the beginning, there were two of us, my mother and I, then three with my brother, and for years my family only consisted of three people. My sister and my daughter came along, bringing the number up to 5 and then 7. Then their children joined us, as well as my partner, my daughters-in-law, their children, life as it happens. But there is another part of this family, much larger, which bears the same name as me, which I have seen and known little about. Moreover, the last contacts with them were, with very few exceptions, disappointing and frustrating. So no automatic family clan. The family has been enriched by people we have chosen or who have chosen us, but here again it is not an automatic family. So I have people with whom I share blood ties, as they say, but whom I do not consider part of my family, my “clan”, and others, with no biological link, who are part of it because I decided so.
French to the core
I do not feel any ethnic, political, religious, union or other affiliation. I am of diverse origins, Afghan, Corsican, Italian, Russian, so as for roots, attachment to a land, a region, etc., I'll pass. I am French, born in France, of a French mother, with a 100% French culture, and I deeply love my country and its culture. But... I don't drink wine, I don't like champagne or foie gras, Johnny Halliday, Marguerite Duras, Indochine, Depardieu, etc.
I am, as they say, rather left-wing, but I do not recognize myself and have never recognized myself in any party, even so-called “left-wing” parties. How could I possibly side with a Straus-Khan, a Hollande or a Mélenchon? It is just inconceivable, unthinkable, impossible.
As for religions, from where I stand, they are at best tales and legends, at worst soulless multinationals with no consideration for their flock. In short, I am not politically partisan, I love my country, but I am not a “nationalist”. I love it above all and I thank it every day for allowing everyone to follow their own path (religious or not), to think what they want and to be free to say what they think.
Enjoying the show
Thinking about it, I realized that, in a lot of situations, if I am urged to choose or to take a side, either I cannot reasonably do so, or I do, knowing that I don't agree 100% with that choice. I learned, at a very young age, to have a balanced opinion, to weight the pros and cons, to consider things from different angles, and it is less and less easy in our world of black & white, good and evil, 1 or 0, all or nothing.
These feelings of “not fully being part of”, “not fully committing to”, “not being certain of” have surely led me quite often choose to be a spectator rather than a participant. I watch, I weigh up, I form my own opinion but... I don't intervene, because I would feel out of place or illegitimate. I often think to myself that it would be so much simpler to have only well-established certainties, a set of principles to follow “no matter what”, but I am neither a hero nor a complete asshole. That doesn't stops me from having convictions, limits and principles, but they are mine, or at least I like to think so, and they never completely match the conventions of the circles in which I operate.
I suppose I'm not the only one in this situation and that we all deal with it in our own way, depending on our family, education and temperament. As for me, I don't like conforming to models, receiving orders or obeying “social injunctions” that I don't agree with. This is probably what prevents me from feeling like a member of a profession, a community or a family in the strictly biological sense of the word.
Wesh Bro !
I should point out that this text was written before the European elections. I'm going to vote for the legislative elections, but I find myself typically having to make a bad choice to avoid making a worse one by not voting at all... Sad.
