"A thread for roots, a thread for flight" by Sai
Part of our Sunday Spotlight series
This week's Sunday Spotlight highlights another The Gen's OG roundtabler Sai (Twitter: @psychalv, Instagram: saikalv). Sai was born in India, grew up/spent time in North America.. (actually, we’ll let her explain below) During our roundtables, she is always able to find the most succinct and beautiful ways to put some of our feelings into words. This week Sai is lending her voice to discuss identity fragmentation. Without further ado, this is Sai.
If life is a tapestry, the identity of a pancultural is a cat’s cradle: a thread for the birthplace, a thread for cultural differences with your own parents, a thread for friends you make and lose, a thread for loves you had to say goodbye to too early. A thread for roots, a thread for flight. The tensile strength of each thread predicts the stability of the whole tapestry.
When you approach your late 20s, there is a strange sort of empathy you start to feel for all your former selves. Those selves with underdeveloped brains that grappled with big concepts like change, identity, love, and safety, but went through them` anyway.
But they had less anxiety at the time. Probably. Right?
As neural pathways sediment and the conversations you have with wildly fascinating, empathetic people (looking at you, The Gen!) throw open a variety of perspectives, you start to lean into it. Wow, there’s other kids out there who moved a million times and are trying to find a home in themselves. Huh, introductions are weird for you too?! Yeah, let’s talk about cultural imposter syndromeTM.
I am an extremely social being, but there is one question that makes me very much want to full ostrich, right there and then – where are you from? With an occasional, heart-sinking “originally” appended to it. My anxiety is palpable as I write, act, and direct the answer to this question on the spot:
Well I was born in India, but…
(why but? Am I embarrassed to be Indian?)
…I grew up for a long time in North America…
(abridged version; b/c saying USA and Canada might be too much; also I skipped Malaysia entirely because maybe it doesn’t count because I didn’t spend enough time there??),
…and then I moved to the UK for school
(best year of my LIFE but it would be weird to focus on that now; gotta show some semblance of social competence)…
…and now I live in the Netherlands.
FIN. Omg, I have talked for ages, they must hate me, I will never talk about myself again.
And the whole thing comes out garbled and apologetic. 9 times out of 10 the response is: you don’t sound Indian AT ALL. Can you blame them though? They just met me.
As I grow up, I realize more and more how identity fragmentation manifests in my core beliefs, practices, and commitments. My entire being became accustomed to starting a “new life” every few years, so as my tenure in a given country reaches this point, my bodily impulse is to start over. But by then I would have nested, and when it’s “time to leave” I ache in every nerve and sinew for my predictable old life in my former home. Then I get to the new city/country/continent, and I fight like hell to live and love again. Rinse and repeat.
Safety and comfort are core psychological needs, so a constant drive to explore new frontiers creates a steady tug of war in me that leaves me feeling restless and taut. If we’re talking core tension, you should see the abs on my soul.
It’s not all rain and no rainbows though; my world has always been a colorful one. I have learned many enduring life lessons from incredible people across cultural divides. I now research communication and relationship-building in the workplace (shocker!). And I’m wicked funny. Thanks, trauma!
I have come to learn that holding dualities in oneself is where you hold power, where you become bigger than your own conceptions of yourself.
Adriene (of Yoga with Adriene) talks of a lifting force opposing a grounding force, Karl Weick, one of my fave organizational scholars, mentions ambivalence (literally, etymologically, being pulled by two equally strong forces) being a sign of wisdom, and we all know the yin and yang dialectic from ancient Chinese philosophy.
I’d like to think that my Asian, North American, and European influences elevate my perspective of the world and make life richer (albeit more turbulent, but perhaps that’s the whole point). And that all the time I spent living outside of myself in order to fit in with everyone else I can now recoup by spending more time looking inward, and maybe by inviting others into this amalgamation of identities that I am made up of. Unapologetically.
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