Group Origin

An acquaintance made reference to a psychological statement that goes like this: "a person is only a product of his environment and a member of his group."

I am curious, if this is accurate, of what group I am a product. A running theme for the majority of my life, maybe the entirety, has been the search for a people to whom I might belong. The closest thing I've experienced is probably the church, and that in only recent years.

I belonged to a group for two years in high school. That might have been the most powerful, but it was a fleeting moment, hardly enduring enough to prove truly formative. There was another during my first years in the service. Again, not so much formative as association of like minds for a short time. 

There have been many small units in which I've been a member over very short years. Every single one of them was punctuated by an acute sense of distance. Outside the fray, I immediately found myself searching for belonging. An incredible week of reading, discussion, communion and existing with a team of intimates did not leave a lasting sense of relationship. These are the highlights of my years in the military, and there were a few. They served to get me through some hard periods, at least.

So I wonder if I am a product of my environment, one of distance and disappointment. I'm not digging in to relish the sad story here. I recognize that what was, was, and what is, really is. But the definition I have for the environment of my life up to this point is not belonging. There is something other - just look at my poetry - that does not seem to reflect identification with people so much as loss of people. 

Maybe that is a good thing, in a way. I am being led to identify with Christ first. My hope is found in him before all else. But I have an overdeveloped sense of need for belonging among a people. Maybe I have found it here where I've inadvertently settled. If that is the case, I cannot but be thankful. Maybe I've found the end of my road. Forgive me if it's a bit hard to believe after a lifetime of feeling like a ghost.

It could be the marriage that just didn't work. It could be the emotional baggage of the years as a teen. It could be my mental frame itself, the melancholy artist who just can't get outside himself. 

So a group of which I am a product? I'm not sure that is always true. I wonder if I have met any others who share my experience or suspicions? Maybe that group, those who haven't ever organized, the ghosts, is the one to which I belong. Or I'm just writing poetry in prose right now, mystical, romantical me, being me, just with paragraphs instead of rhythm and lines.