the art of not belonging

on finding connection through art

I feel suspicious of anyone who felt like they belonged in high school. That period of time, for me, was for feeling uncomfortable among my peers, thinking about all of the ways that we differed. While the popular people seemed to move through the world with ease, everything social felt difficult for me when I was at school. I wasn’t particularly unpopular or disliked, but I felt invisible, distant.

But at home, I was the opposite: comfortable, understood. I would plug my headphones into my laptop and play a playlist that my older brother had sent me, or some artist I discovered from him. Every song felt like a revelation, different from what was playing on the radio or what anyone at school seemed to be into. My shoulders would unclench, my mind would clear, regardless of the genre I was listening to. It wasn’t just music — these sounds were enchanted by their association to my favorite person, by how they expanded the gap between me and my classmates.

When listening to new music, I had initially just been excited to copy my brother. This was my birthright as a younger sibling. But slowly, I realized that my engagement with new non-mainstream music offered a way to feel superior to my incomprehensible peers. It was a classic move for a teenager, to use music as an identity and as a shield, one used rather clumsily. One day, when every single one of my classmates seemed to be talking about the upcoming Darius Rucker concert, I moodily hummed “I don’t belong here” from “Creep” by Radiohead, thinking I was unique for relating to a song that had gone quadruple platinum.

I continued to explore beyond just my brother’s playlists, reading Pitchfork’s album reviews religiously, finding new songs on Hype Machine, and finding album flowcharts on subreddits for individual bands. I developed opinions on genre names that only appeared on Wikipedia pages, and worked through lists of best albums. My motivation was initially partly performative — I sought to appear cool; however, to appear like I cared about interesting things required me to actually care about interesting things. And I started to care a lot.

As much as I relished the opportunities to mention how I didn’t know Top 40 artists or name-drop an artist I thought was niche, those moments became secondary to a genuine excitement for music, for me to delve deeper into the medium than ever before. Music grew, no longer just entertainment or background noise, but also a means to understand myself and see others more clearly.

I paid attention to myself less, started to realize that some of my friends were already listening to the music that I had thought I was discovering by myself. We grew closer, talking about our favorite songs, introducing each other to new albums, favorite lyrics, inside jokes. Each new playlist glimmered with familiarity like my brother’s playlists would before. An entire summer of memories plays in my mind with Wolf by Tyler, the Creator in the background.

What had started as a way to distance myself from some people drew me closer to others: first the artists who seemed to know me more than anyone else, then my fellow fans to share my joy with.

In college, where I once again felt like I didn’t belong, I repeated what I had learned. I was no longer motivated by a desire to differentiate myself, but I sought to first experience the brilliance that art could grant me and then find others who felt the same. I went from barely reading to inhaling novels; from watching only blockbusters to taking film classes and making short films; I listened to more albums than ever before. I relished this work, how it made the world look different, how it drew me closer to new friends, how much the time investment had wrought.

This much is obvious: taking art seriously unlocks an entirely new world, filled with joy, sorrow, and other people who have spent some of their limited time on the planet to understand it. I met many people this way, and I continue to.

Over a decade after I started to dig into music out of a lack of belonging, I moved to NYC knowing very few people. Soon after, I was surrounded with fellow book nerds and film buffs and music enthusiasts, a bit more at ease.

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💧 Drops of the Week 💧

• PLAYLIST - indie&other - a playlist from high school, when I thought I was on the forefront of music discovery

• POEM - “In a Yard of Fallen Yellow Peaches I Am Listening” by Andrew Hemmert - though what even is solitude / in a world of cellular phones and satellites?