reflections on: what is the relationship between belonging and belongings?

[00:00:00] This is a place where we talk about belonging. Welcome to the in-betweenish. I'm Beatriz Nour, your host. Raised in three cultures, two religions, and four languages. Trust me, I get the chaos. On the show, I chat with those who have lived that in-betweenish life, afoot here and afoot there, building bridges across cultures, and of course, the age-old quest to finding home.

[00:00:28] Welcome back to another mini-sode. I want to talk about belonging versus belongings and how for a very long time I was annoyed by how similar these words were, yet they have completely different meanings and completely different connotations.

[00:00:52] So, how this episode came to be is, recently, I lost a material possession that meant a lot to me. That means a lot to me still. It's not because I lost it that it no longer means anything to me.

[00:01:10] And I was speaking to someone about how upset I was that I lost this material product.

[00:01:19] And I was not just upset that I lost the product, I was upset at myself for being upset because it's a material thing.

[00:01:27] And I like to believe that I don't assign too much emotional connection to material things.

[00:01:35] I much prefer to consciously attach emotional connection to people and places and not things.

[00:01:44] So, it just didn't match up. Why was I so upset at no longer having this material thing?

[00:01:54] Did it really deserve my upset? Like, that was part of the issue for me.

[00:01:59] And then I got into this whole conversation about belonging versus belongings.

[00:02:05] And this is what I want to share with you today.

[00:02:08] And my thoughts on both.

[00:02:10] I think both of these terms and concepts are very much related to growing up across different cultures.

[00:02:19] I think we are always looking for belonging.

[00:02:23] More often than not, from the people I've interviewed and the people I've spoken to both on and off the podcast,

[00:02:30] there is this feeling of lack, the lack of belonging.

[00:02:37] It's rare that I actually speak to someone who feels like they have a very strong sense of belonging across the board.

[00:02:44] They might have moments of belonging that they will share with me.

[00:02:48] But often there's a lack of belonging, especially when you grow up across different cultures and you feel kind of torn between two or more different places or languages or religions or traditions.

[00:03:03] And there's this tension.

[00:03:07] And you'd never feel enough, you know, like the...

[00:03:12] It's not about not feeling good enough, but it's just really never feeling enough.

[00:03:16] Like in my example or case rather, never feeling Brazilian enough, never feeling Egyptian enough, never feeling French enough.

[00:03:28] And I don't know if others pick up on that, but what I see, and maybe it's me projecting, but when I interact with someone who is Egyptian or Brazilian or French, I feel like they can see that my not enoughness.

[00:03:42] So belonging is very much tied to growing up across different cultures.

[00:03:51] Belongings is also tied to growing up across different cultures.

[00:03:56] Because with all the moves, if you had to move, whether it was voluntarily or you just had to move as a child, you had to take some of your belongings with you or you got to take some of your belongings with you.

[00:04:09] It's not always a choice.

[00:04:14] So belongings travel with us to a certain extent.

[00:04:19] And this is true even if you've never left the city that you were born and raised in.

[00:04:25] Every day you might commute to work and you'll take certain belongings with you, be it like, you know, your favorite water bottle or your phone or your car will take you there.

[00:04:36] So your belongings are somewhat related also to your identity.

[00:04:43] Personally, I was always annoyed at how similar these two words were.

[00:04:48] And this conversation recently made me see things a little bit differently.

[00:04:53] So now I'm exploring potentially another relationship between belonging and belongings.

[00:04:58] Belongings.

[00:05:02] Let's first maybe understand what do we mean by belonging and belongings.

[00:05:09] One of these two concepts is tangible.

[00:05:12] It's there, like you can hold it.

[00:05:15] And the other one is intangible and harder to explain.

[00:05:19] So let's start with belongings.

[00:05:21] Belongings are tangible possessions, tangible things.

[00:05:28] It's a bit possessive as well.

[00:05:30] Having and owning and it's the accumulation of material goods, like physical products.

[00:05:38] And it can also be tied to consumerism.

[00:05:42] But if you ask the Oxford Dictionary, it describes belongings as a person's movable possessions.

[00:05:50] So things that you have and own that can move with you.

[00:05:56] So that's easier, tangible, concrete.

[00:06:00] Belonging, on the other hand, is a feeling, perhaps a feeling of maybe being like in the right place.

[00:06:08] Belonging is often when I think of belonging, I think of acceptance.

[00:06:11] I think it's also tied to inclusion, to security, to feeling safe to a certain extent, to feeling supported.

[00:06:20] And it's much less tangible.

[00:06:23] There's less of an image that comes to mind when you think of belonging.

[00:06:27] And in this case, if you ask the Oxford Dictionary, it describes belonging as an affinity to a place or situation.

[00:06:38] I think it's that, but also more.

[00:06:42] Going back to my story.

[00:06:45] Me feeling frustrated and annoyed with myself.

[00:06:49] Both feeling sad that I lost this thing, but also feeling just like,

[00:06:53] Beatrice, why are you so upset about this?

[00:06:56] Like, get it together.

[00:06:57] It's just a thing.

[00:06:58] It's fine.

[00:06:59] You know?

[00:07:00] So we got into it.

[00:07:02] What is the relationship between belonging and belongings?

[00:07:04] Because I didn't necessarily see it.

[00:07:08] And the frustration for me came about from how similar these words are, but like how differently I interpreted them.

[00:07:15] And this friend that I was speaking to, whose opinion I really value, told me, okay, but you know, your belongings can also become a part of who you are.

[00:07:29] And my initial reaction was like, no, absolutely not.

[00:07:34] These are just material things.

[00:07:36] It doesn't really matter.

[00:07:39] And there was this very strong aversion from my side of like, no, you are not your belongings.

[00:07:45] Your belongings do not equal you.

[00:07:47] Because I think we live in a capitalist society.

[00:07:52] I live in a hyper-capitalist city, Dubai.

[00:07:57] And it actually really bothers me, this hyper-consumerism and not specific brands, but just like the brandedness of it all.

[00:08:07] You know?

[00:08:07] This is not a Dubai problem specifically.

[00:08:09] This is a world problem at the moment.

[00:08:12] Everyone's like showing off what they own, what they wear, what brands they can afford.

[00:08:17] It's a lot of status signaling, which I really don't like or appreciate.

[00:08:22] But it is all around us.

[00:08:25] I bet you, you can go down and walk in the street right now.

[00:08:28] And just looking at people, you will be able to point out more than 20 brands.

[00:08:35] I think that's a lot of things, whether it's slapped across a t-shirt or sneakers are always very loud and like, you know, Nike, Adidas, On, whatever.

[00:08:43] The latest trendy brand that's out there, you know?

[00:08:47] And I just think it's too much.

[00:08:51] So I have a bit of an unease when it comes to belongings.

[00:08:55] I don't really like being attached to things in theory, but then I do become attached to things.

[00:09:03] But yeah, so belongings, do they define us?

[00:09:07] Do you think belongings define us?

[00:09:09] Do you think they define a part of our identity?

[00:09:12] I think brands would really like that.

[00:09:14] And I think brands really market for that.

[00:09:16] For example, you're at an event.

[00:09:18] You see a complete stranger walk into a room.

[00:09:23] You don't know each other.

[00:09:24] They are wearing the same brand bag as you.

[00:09:31] Maybe even the same model, but a different color.

[00:09:36] Do you feel connected to that person?

[00:09:39] Like truly connected to that person?

[00:09:42] Or do you feel a false sense of connection or maybe annoyance that someone is wearing the same product as you?

[00:09:49] So you're no longer quote unquote unique.

[00:09:52] And even if it's not that, even if you don't feel frustrated or annoyed that someone's wearing the same product, do you feel closer to that person in a way?

[00:10:01] Or is it that the brand was able to market to you and market to that person successfully to get you both to buy into their messaging?

[00:10:14] There's another tangent we can go off on here, but I will not go off into that.

[00:10:17] But that's the world of advertising and marketing that I really have a lot of issues with.

[00:10:23] Because I think it's mostly marketed from a place of lack.

[00:10:29] You don't have this thing.

[00:10:30] You will be better with it.

[00:10:32] And I really don't like that.

[00:10:33] I don't like that messaging.

[00:10:35] I don't like the feeling it can create inside of you.

[00:10:38] If you see someone wearing it, it might, I don't know, evoke feelings of envy or jealousy.

[00:10:46] None of these things are positive in my perspective.

[00:10:49] So I much prefer the no brand.

[00:10:52] Whether it's actually no brand or just like the non-branded brand products.

[00:10:57] Because I don't want to be in walking advertising for brand.

[00:11:01] That's just my take on things.

[00:11:04] To go back to my friend and we're having this discussion about belonging versus belongings.

[00:11:09] And she was saying that, no, actually your belongings do define you.

[00:11:14] And I had such a strong reaction against that.

[00:11:18] But then she gave me this metaphor and I thought it was like very simplified.

[00:11:24] And it did get me thinking about the relationship between belonging and belongings.

[00:11:31] And she said to me, well, if you are in the prehistoric times, there's nothing around.

[00:11:37] You know, humans have not developed all of this modernity, technology and everything that comes with it.

[00:11:44] You're in the savannah.

[00:11:46] You're living your life.

[00:11:47] Would you be able to survive without your belongings?

[00:11:51] And so I thought about it and, and no, I don't think we can.

[00:11:57] So she framed it in another way.

[00:11:59] Okay, great.

[00:11:59] You're in the desert.

[00:12:00] Like we took another environment.

[00:12:02] You're in the desert.

[00:12:02] Would you be able to survive without your belongings?

[00:12:06] And again, the answer is no.

[00:12:08] You needed your belongings.

[00:12:10] Your belongings are a part of your survival.

[00:12:12] Your belongings are your safety net.

[00:12:14] It's like the space that you can go into at the end of the day to rest.

[00:12:19] But there's another very interesting aspect of thinking of belonging in this prehistoric context of being in the savannah or in the desert.

[00:12:28] And it's that you're a few material possessions that protects you from the element that allow you to survive, that maybe allow you to hunt and forage.

[00:12:39] These few material things that you have, you also share with other people in this group that you belong to.

[00:12:55] And I never saw belongings in that way because now we live not in the savannah and not in the desert.

[00:13:07] We live in cities that have an excess, an excess of everything.

[00:13:17] Today, you can order something right now on Amazon and get it delivered at your doorstep in less than 24 hours.

[00:13:26] And I can bet you those things you don't actually need for your survival.

[00:13:32] So maybe I am questioning the relationship between belongings and belonging.

[00:13:41] This is not fully baked in my mind yet, but I am starting to wonder if...

[00:13:47] Maybe I'm a little bit harsh on belongings sometimes.

[00:13:52] And maybe I am allowed to be upset over losing a material good.

[00:13:57] It is what I'm feeling.

[00:13:59] I'm feeling sad.

[00:14:01] I'm feeling sad about this thing no longer being in my life because this thing is tied to certain memories, is tied to certain people, is tied to certain experiences.

[00:14:12] And it's not like those people experiences and memories cease to exist because the thing no longer exists.

[00:14:18] But it does mean I can't create any new memories with this material thing, with the people that were once there and involved.

[00:14:29] Maybe some of our belongings bring a certain sense of belonging, depending on how, where, when, with who we used those belongings.

[00:14:44] Maybe that created a feeling of belonging with the people we used it with.

[00:14:50] For example, homes that you've had to either sell or let go of because you were renting and you had to move out, for example.

[00:14:59] Or you lost maybe to a flood.

[00:15:03] There's been so many floods this year all over the world.

[00:15:06] In the world, a lot of people lost their possessions, things they owned, sometimes everything they owned.

[00:15:13] People lose their material possessions because they have to flee their homes, because they have to pick up and leave, because they choose to immigrate and they cannot take everything with them.

[00:15:28] Because they cut certain people out of their lives and those homes might be tied to those people.

[00:15:37] And so therefore, the things that you housed in that house are no longer yours.

[00:15:44] So I am starting to see a relationship between belonging and belongings.

[00:15:51] And I want to continue to explore this further.

[00:15:55] In case I didn't say this in the beginning, another friend recently told me like,

[00:16:00] yeah, you have your relationship so figured out between your cultures.

[00:16:04] And I'm like, what gave you that impression?

[00:16:07] Well, you have a podcast.

[00:16:09] I'm like, yeah, because I'm confused.

[00:16:12] I don't have it figured out.

[00:16:15] I don't know if anyone does, but I will say for myself, I certainly don't have it figured out.

[00:16:19] I'm not here preaching like this is how you should do things.

[00:16:23] I'm here speaking to other people who are also confused.

[00:16:26] And I don't think confused should be a bad thing.

[00:16:28] I think it's a part of the process and I think it's normal.

[00:16:32] I want to jump back to the definitions just for a second and bring something to your attention that kind of, I don't think it surprised me, but it did make me a bit sad.

[00:16:44] Um, when I was looking up the definitions in the Oxford dictionary, you know, when you Google a word, the definition of a word, it's usually taken from the Oxford dictionary.

[00:16:56] And there's an option where you can like show more click to show more.

[00:17:00] I don't know the exact terminology, but sometimes they have like the etymology of the word and sometimes they have a graph.

[00:17:08] It's, um, a program that Google uses called books and a gram viewer.

[00:17:14] And essentially what it does is it shows you how popular that term is or has been used.

[00:17:22] Uh, and I think it has sources dating back to like the 15th century to present day.

[00:17:30] So the interesting thing is that with belonging and belongings, which do you think is more popular today?

[00:17:39] If you think belongings, you are right.

[00:17:43] Um, mind you, the source, like they're looking at books and newspapers and articles from the 15th century literature from back then to present day.

[00:17:55] And then like, obviously when the internet came to be and all that.

[00:17:58] So there's a lot of sources here.

[00:18:02] Belongings came into existence.

[00:18:04] It seems around the 1850s.

[00:18:07] And it was like gradually going up just ever so gradually until you hit the 1980s.

[00:18:13] And then it just skyrockets and belongings seems to be everywhere.

[00:18:19] So physical possessions, the longings, the things you own, the things you have, that term has become very, very popular from the 1980s to now.

[00:18:33] It's just been like exponential growth.

[00:18:37] And then quite the contrary of that is belonging.

[00:18:43] Belonging was at the height of its popularity in the early 1800s and was ever gradually going down, down, down, very gradually until it hit its lowest point around the 1980s again.

[00:19:02] And then it's just kind of plateaued.

[00:19:05] And you can see the graphs are the opposite of each other if you just look at it really quickly.

[00:19:11] I think that that on some level does reflect society.

[00:19:15] And it does show how people are perhaps valuing their physical belongings over their feeling of belonging.

[00:19:30] The irony is that people today, studies continue to show that people today are the loneliest they've ever been.

[00:19:38] When studies came out about Gen Z, it was said that they're going to be the loneliest generation.

[00:19:43] And then Gen Alpha, the next generation after them, it was said that they're going to be the loneliest generation.

[00:19:49] I think it was also said about millennials that we're going to be the loneliest generation.

[00:19:54] And we keep upping one another.

[00:19:56] And I don't know where we're going.

[00:19:59] Maybe we're looking for the wrong things.

[00:20:03] Maybe it isn't belongings that we should be going after.

[00:20:07] We don't need half the things we have today to survive.

[00:20:11] Everything is in excess today.

[00:20:13] But belonging, the feeling, the feeling that you are accepted, included in the right place, that you belong, that's lacking.

[00:20:29] You don't belong to a brand.

[00:20:33] Even influencers that get these huge brand deals and represent these brands, you think they feel a sense of belonging with these brands?

[00:20:41] Or do you think it's like the illusion of belonging?

[00:20:45] And really, it's just about consumerism.

[00:20:50] Maybe there's something wrong with this equation.

[00:20:53] Maybe the graph shouldn't be exponential growth in belongings and a complete downwards plateau.

[00:21:03] Downwards and plateau, because these two things are not the same in belonging.

[00:21:07] Maybe we need to be looking for more belonging.

[00:21:10] How can we foster that?

[00:21:11] How can we create that?

[00:21:15] And I've been thinking about belonging in and of itself, like aside from the relationship it might have with belongings.

[00:21:22] And I think we got a lot of things wrong about belonging.

[00:21:26] And I want to do another mini-sode about this in the future.

[00:21:29] But belonging is not all just external people accepting you in.

[00:21:35] I've come around to the idea that belonging is also work that you can do.

[00:21:41] So I don't want to go off on that tangent, but that's just a little something for a future mini-sode that I can pick up at.

[00:21:50] I'm going to leave you with these questions.

[00:21:52] How do you understand belonging versus belongings?

[00:21:58] Do you see a relationship between belonging and belongings?

[00:22:06] Can we exist without our belongings?

[00:22:09] I'll ask you the question my friend asked me.

[00:22:13] And can we belong without our belongings?

[00:22:17] Yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[00:22:19] I'd love to hear your relationship to belonging and belongings.

[00:22:25] So reach out to me.

[00:22:27] And again, I don't have this figured out.

[00:22:30] I'm just questioning things.

[00:22:32] And I'm confused and I embrace it.

[00:22:35] And I think it's perfectly fine to be confused.

[00:22:38] We don't have to have it all figured out.

[00:22:42] And I hope that this made you think about things a little bit differently.

[00:22:47] And if it did, maybe send it to someone and spark this conversation with them.

[00:22:52] Because I think it's a very interesting conversation to have face to face.

[00:22:56] So that's a wrap for today.

[00:22:58] If you've enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to hit subscribe to never miss an episode.

[00:23:03] The Inbetweenish pod is created and hosted by Beatrice Noor.

[00:23:08] The behind-the-scenes magic is thanks to Habiba Errubi.

[00:23:12] And original music is composed and produced by Malik El-Masidi.

[00:23:17] I love hearing from our listeners, so feel free to reach out to me anytime.

[00:23:21] Join us every other Tuesday.

[00:23:23] And remember, the quest for belonging never ends.

[00:23:26] And you are not alone.

[00:23:28] Keep exploring, keep embracing, and keep celebrating that in-betweenish life.