This may sound crazy but I have always had an inkling in the back of my head that I might be deluded in some way. Maybe it was growing up watching too many movies like the sixth sense or the Truman show. It also may just be a simple coping mechanism for always feeling a little different. A couple months ago I had a conversation with a friend at a coffee shop, our point of connection was that our fear of delusion could at times infiltrate even our closest relationships. Neither of us are actually deluded, don't get me wrong, but the fear of being deluded was no doubt a reality for both of us. Our conversation started off…”do you ever get the feeling that our perception of reality is just a little off, like maybe we are not actually friends. Maybe you are just my carer and I just think you're my friend.”
This sounds totally crazy and before you label this experience as some deep psychological infringement on our psyche, I want to offer an alternative suggestion. Maybe this whole conundrum is due simply to years of just not quite fitting into society. Maybe it is actually a feeling of marginalisation, that although you feel like you are included into society (there are always people who are worse off than us) the subtle little traits that we sometimes embody is exactly what marks us different to everybody else. What if our fear of delusion comes from a place of marginality? Among friends it can be fun sharing our fears of delusion over coffee and having a laugh, but what happens when this fear begins to spill into other aspects of our lives. What if this fear begins to show up in our workplaces or our classrooms, it can be debilitating set of fears. In fact these fears can lead to an outright existential identity crisis. If undiscovered it may lead us to a place that encourages those around us to actually convince us that our voice is just deluded and in doing so spiral us into a deep pit of the unknown.
As much as I know that i'm not crazy I have not just arrived at this point overnight. I have spent many a night contemplating my worldview and even my sanity after teachers, colleagues and employers critique my subtle little differences. “Is my perception of the world really that off?”, I often ask this of myself as I sip my last drip of coffee and dread returning to the interactions of the majority culture. I understand this fear as inherently alive in all minority groups. The fact is that 'the other' is always going to struggle to understand where we come from and either; not want to or find it difficult to engage in our story. When we are unaware of our marginality as the cause of this fear we can spiral into a deep existential reality of not knowing who we really are, this year maybe hidden deep in our subconscious. Naming the cause is our first priority because it can show us what is really happening and redirect us from blaming ourselves (which is never positive). We do not have this fear because we are wrong! We have this fear because of a particular environment that is present around us. For many of us we can’t change this environment around us but what we can do is take better notice of it and be better prepared for what it throws at us.
Another question that can arise out of this conversation here is 'who is to blame? If it is not ourselves. We might ask ourselves 'Who caused our environment to be like this?' To be honest my instinctual reaction is to blame the majority culture! That is what my rush and urge of emotions thrust me towards, but I must also remind myself these sorts of accusations often get us nowhere, they often just cause more conflicts and further our marginality. If we look at personalities such as Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks or Nelson Mandela, we see people who hold the tensions of speaking up with a cool restraint whilst also not backing down from their values, they do this in order to move everybody forward, even if it's just a little bit at a time. Knowing when to confront can be a tricky line to tow but also a reality for those who are marginalised. One of our toughest questions as marginal people is knowing when we should engage our voice and no longer be silent or knowing when to simply submit and take on criticism humbly. Speaking out always costs a marginal person something, maybe our question is how much cost can we bear?
My next point is from a slightly more spiritual perspective, this is not necessarily ‘religious’ but when I say ‘spiritual’ I mean from a point that engages our whole being; in posture, in action and in worldview. So as marginal people we will always be faced with not wanting to share our voice for the fear of condemnation. This puts us in a unique space to practice both a virtue of humility and a virtue of integrity. For those who are marginalised the experience of these two virtues coming into connection can excite and challenge us. I believe learning to balance these two virtues are vital for marginal people to continue to learn to hold on to. This strange tension especially when it is practiced well is the birthplace of forgiveness without the forgoing of justice. If we fight and try to strip those in the majority culture of their power we are simply adopting the same posture of dominance we find ourselves struggling in. In fact, to strip someone of power to obtain and wield it for ourselves could arguably be more detrimental than to have and wield power that was inherited. We must be careful not to fall into the trap of fighting for power, the virtue found in marginality is not power, it is the melding of humility with integrity. In my opinion, this virtue found in marginality is what made the likes of Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa parks and Nelson Mandela heroes. I hope we can aspire to make change as these heroes did. The posture they held stands in contrast to the Kings of Christendom who stole land, pillaged towns and crusaded the known world. These Kings made change through the reckless exercising of power and left legacies for later eastern and western colonisers to force change through wielding power rather than making change through a melding of the virtues of humility and integrity. This virtue is often presented to those who are marginalised as an enticing narrow path. A wise man once said 'it is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God'. This quote is not intended to bring down those who have power, it is intended to lift up those who have none. Our posture to those who overwhelm us in life might need to come from a deeper understanding of who we really, a place that is sacred even when power and control are stripped away from us. The question I leave for you to continue to ponder is…
Who are you when you have no power or authority?
And how do you make change from that place, with that identity?
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