Belonging/Community/Every Other Self-Help Title Ever

There's got to be a list out there of all the things people intrinsically want as humans because I keep noticing more and more how universal a lot of emotions we experience on a regular basis are.  Wanting to belong is just one of them that I've been thinking about lately.  I think on some level we all want to belong to something or some group because belonging to a community is a large part of cultivating an identity for ourselves.  I read an article in my Social Aspects of Sexuality class that discussed the tenuous nature of communitites and how they erect these imaginary boundaries to help define the group and the individuals in it.  The vast amount of imaginary communities out there is overwhelming which is good for all of us because the odds are in our favor that we'll find one we fit in with, if this we're the Hunger Games of social acclimation we would totally be winning! (Nerd Alert! I couldn't help it I just couldn't stop thinking of "May the odds be ever in your favor") That aside, sometimes it's difficult to pick the 'right' group and I put right in quotations because I think it's a little obtuse for any one person to claim what is right or wrong for anyone else.  I'm just saying that with so many options people have to try on different communities, different identities, to find what fits best and often we mess up.  I certainly have, the number of times I tried to force something just because I thought it would look nice on my resume is a number even I'm ashamed of, but in the end I started to shed some of this imaginary weight to find what Anna Quindlen calls "your authentic self".  This notion is particularly intriguing to me because I truly believe that we go through a whole bunch of "selves" before we find our authentic one.  The problem with associating too much of our own identity with that of a community means that we become dependent on both the strongholds of that community as well as its boundaries.  People are complex, man oh man are we complex, and limiting ourselves like that is just plain dumb! I'm headed back to Wisconsin this weekend, shout-out to the Midwest raise all the roof's on all the houses, and I started to wonder if who I am today still aligns with the Midwestern values I was raised in?  Should I start feeling more of a sense of belonging with the East coast now?  I discovered that I can't shake my Midwestern background, nor do I want to, and I can't stop myself from finding who my authentic self is in this Eastern climate.  So I won't.  Every community I'm a part of, abstract or concrete, has shaped me and will continue to do so, but as long as I allow myself to think about who I am inside this whole machine they won't control my authentic self.  If you feel like you don't belong, surprise yourself, look a little deeper or search a little harder because I guarantee that someone, somewhere, would love to start an imaginary community with you! You can form the world's smallest cult (Joke! That was a joke I do not support cult activity!) or a two-person traveling circus whatever your interests are.  I won't be running in Wisconsin - gasp - so I won't be updating for a while, but while I'm eating cheese curds in the great state of the Green Bay Packers I'll be hoping everyone has a RUN-believable day!