One value I wrote down for myself some years back was universalism, defined as the constant drive to expand my scope of relation to the world and avoiding restrictive identities like nation-states, race, religion, etc.

However, as I am growing older, for all my caution, I find myself with a deep longing and almost primal need for some kin or clan to belong to. I want to be able to draw a line around me and have some people and spaces in it and say that those are mine.

At a younger age, I would chide myself for feeling this need because it would stand in strong opposition to the universalism value I am committed to sticking by.

But now, I am learning, perhaps not all belonging comes at the cost of exclusion. How you relate to the world is not one way or another, but instead, one way and another, and more.