Lessons in Life: Inclusion

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What experiences of inclusion in your life had made you question your prior beliefs and taught you a great lesson?
Flash Contest on Inclusion, sponsored by bananafish@bananafish



This is a great question, because if we haven't changed over the course of our lives, our time has pretty much been wasted. calluna@calluna and the@the ironfelix know that I attempted to answer this in the comment section, and sort of misinterpreted what was expected of me. I'll give it another shot :)



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I always felt kind of marginalized, so I didn't see others in that way. I was the outsider. As I explained in my comment, the one thing I had to outgrow was the idea that it was important to dress a certain way, to have a certain manner, to project a certain style.

I think it helped that I went to college in Greenwich Village in the 1960s. This was a time and place of cultural revolution. My family lived in an attic, but we clung to our pretensions. Every day I'd take the subway from my modest Brooklyn apartment, go under the East River and come out in a different world. I went to New York University. Many of my classmates had gone to prep school. All of them, I was sure, were rich.

When I first went off to college my sister shopped with me to buy proper clothes so I could fit in. Everything was pretense that first year. I spoke to almost no one, because they might find out where I really came from. I was a scholarship student and felt like an imposter.

Then I met a few people. They had to actually pursue me to get me to open up. That was my "coming out". I once took a guy home to my apartment. I don't know why, because I was so embarrassed. But he was fascinated. I don't think he'd ever been in home like that.

We had to climb a winding dark stairway up three flights until we came to my door. My mother had built the couch in our front room from folding chairs and had sewed little green cushions that she attached to the seats with small ties. These ties also held the chairs together so they wouldn't separate when we sat on them. But of course, we never sat on them unless company came.

It took a few years for me to come full circle, to drop the idea that the way I dressed, the way I sipped soup or folded my napkin helped to define me. I think the moment I realized I had grown out of it came on another evening with another young man. His background was quite prestigious, he was sure to let me know. I think he was eager to impress me and took me out to a very expensive dinner. It was at dinner that I had a moment of clarity.

I was talking with a fork in my hand and I waved it as I gestured. He was horrified. The breach of etiquette cut him to the core. But I wasn't embarrassed. I had to stop myself from laughing. I recognized that he was still trapped in a place I had grown beyond.

So there it is, the inclusive lesson I learned: to eschew superficial differences, to disdain the unimportant. Inclusiveness meant accepting everyone without looking at the nonsense. The world was much more open for me then and I moved about it more freely, not only with greater acceptance of myself but with greater acceptance of everyone I met.


You ask if I would recommend a movie, book or television show that might sensitive others to the state of being marginalized. Yes. Definitely. One of the most effective movies I ever saw that dealt with this subject was *District 9. There are other great movies and books that come to mind, but I like this one because it doesn't highlight a particular group, but deals with marginalization as a state.


Lessons in Life: Inclusion | Ecency