When I was four or five, my parents gave me my first album. Beatles Revolver. One of my favorite songs on that album, and possibly my favorite song ever, is “She Said She Said”.

Strangely, all my life, until quite recently, I misheard the lyrics. Even now, if I don’t pay attention I still hear it as:

And you’re making me feel like
I’ve never belonged

That has been the dominant feeling of my entire life.

Enneagram experts tell me I am a five wing with a four wing. I’ve wondered if I might not be a four with a five wing. Five, for me, is how four expresses itself. I’m almost a four with an everything-else wing. I cannot get along with the other kids.

Part of my belonging problem might be that my judgments are very much my own.

On all important matters, I know exactly what I think. It is a direct result of effort. If I find myself at a theoretical, practical or moral loss, that loss becomes a philosophical problem. I have processed mountains of lead into gold with my industrial strength philosopher’s stone.

Further, I have paid close attention to what I admire (even when others disparage it) and what I experience as contemptible (even when others praise or “normalize” it).

I take my own judgments far more seriously than those who have not put effort into forming their own personal opinions, but who, instead subscribe to general expert-certified opinion, as if it were another cloud service, like Spotify, NYT or Netflix. I find the streaming beliefs of the people around me to be wrong at best, and more often vapid and embarrassing. The worst of these beliefs are the beliefs these subscribers hold about their own personal virtues. Self-awareness. Critical thinking. Empathy. Justice. Questioning of authority. Radicalness. The belief that they epitomize these things is pure metacognitive incompetence.

For this reason, whenever I am praised to condemned, I don’t think any better or worse of myself.

But that does not mean lame beliefs, stupid political attitudes, negative judgments or failure to appreciate my contributions do not bother me. They bother me a lot.

But they do not bother me as judgments of me as a person.

I experience them as evidence that I will never belong to groups who subscribe to such nonsense.

And it subscription nonsense, by which most groups are defined. The subscription medium, not the steaming content, that is the message.

I experience it as the hopelessness of ever having a place.

In times like these, we are forced to choose between social alienation or self alienation. Most take the road of self alienation.

They’re making me feel like
I’ll never belong.