Making-Meanings

I’ve mentioned this idea a few times, but its pretty core, so I figured a follow-up was needed.

I considered myself to be a pretty open person – I love learning (for real), going to new places, reading and getting lost in “new” worlds – all that good stuff. Yet, I also had to face a pretty hard truth (for me) as I’ve aged (very slightly): I also get defensive pretty easily. It comes back to self-confidence, in that I can easily slide into feeling like an outsider, which at times can parallel imposter syndrome.

I thought of that more as a personal struggle, yet my eyes *slowly* started to open up to the fact that not only was I causing myself to miss out on experiences, or at least fully embracing them, but I also was shutting other people out of my life unintentionally.

Pierre Bourdieu is a theorist (typically claimed by anthropologists and sociologists) who expressed that we, as individuals and collectives, are the best at keeping our own selves in our social lanes. Arguably, it doesn’t take much to picture a “highbrow” art enthusiast as different than a NASCAR fan. Certainly these are stereotypes, but you can also imagine the discomfort that could occur if they swapped places – there’s potentially a lack of knowledge about the topic at hand, they haven’t socialized with that group of people, and they could feel self-conscious based on their attire, the way they hold themselves, their language and speech patterns, understanding taken-for-granted references within the context, etc.

While I’ve taught and researched this approach (cultural and social capital), I still had some blind spots in my own life. In considering how to make life even more meaningful, questions are starting to creep in as to what I may have cut myself off from, even if I didn’t mean to.

Have you defined yourself as not good at something, so you just won’t try it again? Did you decide a long time ago that you don’t like something, so it fell off the radar? Do you feel like you aren’t good enough to go somewhere, try something, or be with a different group of people?

Don’t get me wrong – there are legitimate, traumatic, health-based (etc) reasons for not going to certain spaces or trying certain things. If its within a safe realm, though, is there a new approach you could take to reconsider something? Give it a go one more time and see what its like from an updated vantage point?

Give yourself that credit.