The Need to belong...

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What different tongues we speak among our own tribes.
- Everybody has a language that is unique within his village.
The village may be aboriginal, Abysynthian, or absurd
- But each speaks its own little set of coded signals
Like red ants do when they smell each other
- To see whether or not whoever it is belongs
. on this particular anthill.
Humans, I guess, are just a little more auditory than ants,
- So, we slip in little subtle verbal cues
That only we - the initiates of this little circle that we move in - know.
- Tones of voice, tricks of speech or accent
That way we can sniff out others, and push them out,
- Away from our fledglings.

I think that insecure people do it more than the all the rest.
As if the act of excluding outsiders makes the insiders more
- Inside than they would be without the rules that exclude.
Dear God, how we need to belong!!
- Did you do that? Did you make us that way?

My mate says you made a mistake, God, in giving us all that free will.
- She has a point. It leaves our fledglings at terrible risk.
They may move on without us and choose some path
- That brings them hurt.
They might change their accents, eschew the code,
- Ignore the warning signs
They could become different from those who remain
- In our safe little worlds
They could think things and do things
- That take them beyond the borders of the places
Where they have grown up.
- And, for that matter, so might we.
So, we code our language, habits, joys,
- To keep out, people that we don't know, but probably should.
And to keep in those we do know only too well
- And cannot bear to be parted from.

How sad!

I love language and code words and customs and habits,
- But as something that defines us rather than separates us.
Oh, what we miss for the sake of safety and the snug security
- Of the anthill or nest or village.

Just one man's opinion....

Tom King