6 ms·

Find more ways to be an outsider

56 points by jger15 5y ago

opisthenar84 5y ago
tl;dr: Try something new and be yourself.
- TrainedMonkey 5y ago
  Just be yourself is advice I see often given when telling people how to behave in new situations, but nobody ever talks about how to be yourself. Who you are and how you behave is a product of both past history and current situation. In other words it is easier to be yourself when you are in a comfortable and familiar situation. But when exposed to a brand new situation/experience "just be yourself" is terrible starting advice for many people because it is completely non-obvious how to do that. I've been given that advice many times and it took some deep introspection and many years to figure out what it meant and how to be myself. This might be self evident for many people, but for me discovering myself meant knowing what made me happy and unhappy. I've done that by being mindful of how I felt before/while/after doing something. This let me establish a core persona who is more influenced by past history and less by current situation. At this point just be myself is a good reminder, but starting with that advice was not helpful at all.
- nonrandomstring 5y ago
  Part of "just being yourself" is to follow those natural primate instinct to go along, get along, evaluate, adapt and fit-in. That's a good and useful thing. The time when you'll most be "yourself" is in these novel situations. For most people new challenges bring out their best sides. The time when people are least "themselves" is when we're entrenched in established groups, trying to stay "Liked", following the group-think, not risking status, saying what we think people want to hear. The risk of being excluded from an existing group as a "defector/traitor" feels much worse than of "not being accepted as an outsider" when approaching a new group since we expect some latitude. Being the new kid can give you some charm and opportunity. However, it's within existing, rigid structures that speaking your mind (against consensus) can have the most extraordinary effects. It's a huge risk and a fine balance, but someone who has earned respect, and has "standing", can be themselves while also being part of the team then they have become something much more - a leader.
- chousuke 5y ago
  "Be yourself" is often said, but it's equally often not actionable advice on its own. Not everyone knows who or what they are, and even someone who knows is not necessarily able to be themselves without outside help. I struggle with being myself quite often; there are things I want to do, but I can't simply decide to just do those things... My brain does not work that way. For example, it can take a lot of effort to even say what I truly want to say, because consciously deciding to speak does not necessarily result in me actually doing so, no matter how hard I think the thought.
  - k__ 5y ago
    I always have the feeling I LARPed my whole life and "being myself" isn't something that comes easy to me. I wanted to belong and did things to be cool and accepted, without really understanding the mechanisms behind it.
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  fyi a good tl;dr usually has a clause with "because" in it
atdrummond 5y ago
Interestingly enough, despite the many warnings I received against doing so, researching heterodox economics and economic history helped provide me with a massive network of researchers and speaking opportunities I wouldn't have otherwise been able to access. Not only that, I was able to avoid getting trapped in the morass of extremely qualified and aggressive course mates and students at other top institutions, almost all of whom were filtered into just a few areas of inquiry. I often struggle to properly convey to those unfamiliar with this particular social (or dismal...) science the immense difficulty I would have faced in standing out given my research would have been in competition with dozens of journal articles with similar or identical theses - all at the same handful of publications.
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  I suggest adding something to your profile about that research. AT Drummond finds nothing useful on Google or Google Scholar.
  - exolymph 5y ago
    Quite possible that it's a pseudonym.
    - atdrummond 5y ago
      It's not a pseudonym but it's also not the name I've used in that particular part of my professional/academic life.
  - atdrummond 5y ago
    I didn't end up pursuing my PhD to completion due to my leukaemia situation turning quite dire, so I've ended up with a dissertation and 4 articles sitting unpublished. For what it is worth, my research specifically investigated the economic history of the American West and the impact of European Ranchers and their differentiated agricultural systems (compared to Native Americans) on the preservation and/or destruction of iconic keystone species such as the Bison and the Wolf. This work owed a considerable amount to the ideas promulgated by Elinor Ostrom - funnily enough, a political scientist by education who herself went against the conventional wisdom in our field and helped revolutionise resource/agricultural economics. Interestingly, while I ended up going into industry as health permitted, my connections forged while pursuing the above heterodox research has allowed for me to do plenty of economic consulting as well as helping shore up research at various non-profits/think tanks in the policy space. I'm also always happy to speak to HN users about anything I post - feel free to email me at alex <at> staqq.co
Tade0 5y ago
I was born to expat parents far away from my home country - we came back just when I was about to start grade school. As an adult I spent 4 years in Italy which started off with my SO participating in a volunteer program and me tagging along because I secured a remote position, so I was flexible in terms of location. The general conclusion is that you have to have something to run away from or an opportunity to chase. For my father it was a lucrative contract. For my SO a method of breaking away from the environment she grew up in. Also you don't really have to travel to be an outsider. I spent a great deal of time in high school in a catholic bible study circle, even though (or actually - because) I'm an atheist. They were very kind and we had many interesting discussions.
- jdmoreira 5y ago
  > I was born to expat parents Do you mean your parents were immigrants? Because that's what they were. Expat is the most pretentious colonialist term I can think of.
  - jandrewrogers 5y ago
    An expat is not an immigrant. The term "expat" usually denotes a person living outside their native country for a significant period of time. There is no implication that an expat is seeking permanent residency, it is more transient status.
    - toyg 5y ago
      This came up before - the problem becomes that you then have "expats" who never actually go back, but never stop calling themselves such. So transiency is not really the discriminating factor. The term "expat" is indeed a leftover from British colonial times, when you look at things objectively. People who define themselves as expats are typically some sort of migrant for economic reasons, exactly the same as somebody coming from, say, Ethiopia; they just have enough money and culture to escape the label. If we really want to look for something that differentiates expats from regular migrants, we'll find that it is a certain obstinacy to not "go native", to maintain a separatedness from the local culture even after years or decades. Which is, again, a typically colonialistic mindset.
yawnxyz 5y ago
https://archive.ph/eqvmR https://archive.ph/eqvmR
aaron695 5y ago
giantg2 5y ago
Maybe I'm an outlier of the outsider group. Being different has hurt me way more than being an insider. Even being an insider can suck when you don't always agree with the rest of the tribe.
MichaelMoser123 5y ago
> A 2012 review found that being raised in at least two cultures leads, on average, to greater psychological and emotional well-being and higher social competence in adulthood I don't know, there are two sides to every coin: it sucks on many levels to be an outsider. Maybe it's the wrong question to ask about 'happiness', it may well be that one is achieving less as an outsider, on average, but that one is assigning more value to the achievements, as one may have had to work harder compared to the insiders in order to get to where you are... (speaking as a TCK - third-culture kid; never heard of this term before) Still, I very much value the added perspective granted by having been exposed to a different set of cultures, it's a very precious thing to me. Also there may just be some element of Survivorship bias in this kind of observation. There is this kind of logic: 'what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger', still some don't manage to cope, unfortunately.
- rakejake 5y ago
  Being an outsider gives you a different perspective, however at the end of the day you should have a "home culture" to go back to, and more importantly a home that will accept you. It is possible that you will end up neither here nor there which is frustrating.
  - MichaelMoser123 5y ago
    that's not how it goes, in practice one is somewhere in between the different cultures/civilizations, and there are always actors that are not very cosy with each other...
openfuture 5y ago
I will pitch in here just after reading the title. I have been doing this for years, when corona started I stopped wearing shoes and cutting my hair and the treatment I've gotten is definitely different. I appeal to a very different crowd and get dismissed and shunned by a significant majority. The day before yesterday I got arrested on a train for absolutely nothing (they even refused to tell me what I was being arrested for) and no one stood up for me. Someone told me once that by European law I am allowed to keep my identification documents in a safe place when I am not in my home country, so only citizens of country are obligated to produce identification upon request. Therefore I refused to identify myself to the police and will always do so since there are people who cannot get out of trouble by waving a magic card. I could however not avoid the magic card after they handcuffed me threw me in a car and hit me a couple of times. At the police station the levelheaded old guy basically told me that I could go to jail or identify myself so I showed him my university IDs and Icelandic drivers licenses and suddenly I am free to go with apologies. If I was from Brazil I'd be in jail now, however I am not from Brazil so I can now sue these dudes and make sure they are scared to do stuff like this to people. When we opt out of the bad treatment with our IDs then we are giving up on human rights.
- ct0 5y ago
  You are a nonviolent resistor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_resistance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_resistance
  - gerdesj 5y ago
    A resistor is a stripy electronic component. A resister is an entity that resists - probably a person. Mr Google doesn't seem to recognise the difference between resistor and resister, judging by the grey wiggly underline in Chrome. That's quite awful, especially now.
- mhitza 5y ago
  > Someone told me once that by European law I am allowed to keep my identification documents in a safe place when I am not in my home country, so only citizens of country are obligated to produce identification upon request. Never heard of anything like that https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/entry-exit/eu-citizen/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/entry-exit/eu-c... > it is still always highly recommended to take a passport or ID card with you, so you can prove your identity if needed (if stopped by police, boarding a plane, etc.).
toyg 5y ago
As a complete outsider and a father of two "TCK"s (that term is a bit too close for comfort to "Louis CK"...), this is obviously a welcome read - I can only hope my kids will indeed benefit from the difference that they inherited. I see it every day that there are clear opportunities in being a bridge between different worlds: it provides authority where none might otherwise be warranted, dramatically cuts down on jingoism and traditionalism, provides perspective on one's true condition, and opens one to experience the different, which is a great way to find ones true place in the world. But it can also be brutally lonesome. It's probably more so for me than for my kids, but feeling effectively unable to ever access certain circles, far away from your most trusted friends, and struggling to navigate the codes and conventions of a different society - it can be very, very hard. It definitely made me more self-sufficient, but that's not necessarily a good thing all the time. If the local culture not just ignores you but actively rejects you, it can also be pretty scary (and costly). It's also something that TCKs don't get to choose. I can blame myself for my status, but they should not blame themselves - and still I fear they might. One of them is clearly struggling a bit with reconciling his multiple identities, and I fear it will get worse as he moves into adolescence.
- JackMorgan 5y ago
  I'm a TCK who grew up in a third world country with a lot of other TCKs. My mother runs programs for TCKs to help them grieve and close the stress loops caused by no longer living in their home culture and having to lose friends and family. Kids that partially grew up in one culture and then moved to another are particularly at risk for depression and loneliness. For example, imagine the cruelty of fellow children to a child who doesn't speak the language very well. Even a slight accent is cause for mockery by peers. Also grades will plummet as they can't keep up to the curriculum in a new language (a common thing many youth use as a proxy for self worth). The biggest advice my mother teaches is to learn to properly grieve for lost friends (truly a skill all humans need anyway) and how to complete stress loops in healthy ways like exercise, crying, and yelling. Stress loops that don't complete can become deep emotional wounds for years. As a TCK, I prefer the company of other TCKs, and often form deep bonds with them quickly. We've both "seen things" and can relate to each other, even if we both grew up in totally different countries. I married a TCK, and find most of my friends as TCKs. The good news is it really does give a person a life long perspective that more people deserve. The more socially fluent TCKs become excellent at casually blending into a culture. Many grow to become really good at making friends. Few take politics too seriously. Many work with people, striving to better the world we live in by helping others as teachers, doctors, social workers, and volunteers. Quite a few found comfort in the armed services, because those turn recruits into third culture adults. The bad news is it does increase risk of depression at all ages, because you can't ever go back and unsee things. You will have opinions that are uncomfortable to locals no matter where you live. You will have sometimes grown up in a much less safe environment and have a hard time adjusting to a safer environment. I had a few incidents that caused some minor PTSD from crimes towards me and my friends growing up. White people are often considered all rich in poorer countries, so white children are more often targets for crimes ranging from small like getting ripped off at the corner store or muggings to kidnapping for ransom. Several of my friends growing up had armed robbers break in and rob their family at gunpoint. My high school crush was almost kidnapped had her Dad not jumped in the van to save her. I've been robbed a bunch of times. Growing up where it's not safe to walk to school alone causes a person to see the world very differently even long into adulthood. In all, I wouldn't trade it for a "normal" upbringing. There was some bad, and I had to deal with some emotional issues from it. But overall I felt like I was given a very powerful gift of perspective and social skills that would enable me to thrive as an adult. Outside perspective can be a tricky thing, because once you have it, it's very hard to lose it. I consider it a very important part of myself, and actively seek ways continue to see things from new perspectives. If you've got TCKs, I highly recommend finding a good grief counselor for them, so they can learn how to close the stress loops. A dozen sessions could make a huge difference in their quality of life as adults, even if they seem perfectly happy and well adjusted. Many TCKs are masters of disguise and can hide away pain and sadness behind a mask for decades until a mid life crisis. Tools to deal with it as children is a fantastic help.
evocatus 5y ago
This article reads exactly like how I would expect it to, were it written by a white. > In candor, I’m approaching this topic with a fair amount of bias. Being an outsider early in my adulthood was the most positive experience I have ever had. At 25, I moved to a foreign country where I didn’t speak a word of the language, and knew not one soul save for a woman I hoped to marry, but who spoke little English. > That woman became my wife, and subsequently became an outsider in the United States. Translation: I subjugated someone of a culture historically regarded as inferior to my own to the supremacy of western culture. Since they are now my wife, this gives me moral clearance to extol the virtues of a disadvantaged upbringing without having actually suffered any of its hardship myself, and also paint myself with an aura of pseudo-accomplishment for having experienced a mere fraction of that lifestyle.
- majormajor 5y ago
  We seem to have read different articles. Is Spain not part of western culture? Not that the author seems to be speaking for his wife as having gotten advantages from this, or claiming she came from a disadvantaged background, but that he himself feels like he benefited from struggling through the initial language issues. (The adopted daughter came from outside Western culture, but he doesn't so much attribute her current thriving to being brought to the US as much as to going through three different in-US highschools and then going to college in Spain.) And there's a pretty straightforward plausible cause->effect there: if you're on equal economic and opportunity-having footing otherwise, initially coming in as an outsider starts you off ahead in terms of eventually being able to see things from multiple perspectives. I do think the article suffers from not acknowledging the active difficulties suffered by many forced outsiders in particular - vs his moving to another western-culture-country where there was a language barrier but not, say, a history of lynching people like him - but that's different from what you see him doing. I think he has a blind spot between the difference between his "outsider" experiences and a true "disadvantaged" experience, I don't think he's putting words in the mouth of the disadvantaged as so much as glossing over them and ignoring them. (I.e., he's a conservative pundit. :| )
- exolymph 5y ago
  What. Is there any indication she didn't marry him on purpose?
tayo42 5y ago
Not sure I agree with being an outsider being good. Its maybe at best neutral and just drives your life in a different direction. Its a little vague on the details about why. I grew up not being white enough to be white, not hispanic enough to be hispanic, never quite fit in anywhere and I think it sucked. Maybe the bullying built some character or something? hah. I don't feel real attachment to any culture. I visited the country one of my grand parents came from and felt no connection to the culture or the people other then I looked a little like them. Eventually I ended up moving across the country, NY to California. I don't really feel like a californian, but after a few years out here, The region of NY where I grew up doesn't really feel like home anymore. My family is mostly spread out now too. Its a weird feeling. I think I would attribute my "success" more to winning the lotto by being into computers at the right time then anything like growing up on the outside. The advice overall is probably fine, yeah go out and do new things that aren't comfortable. Glamorizing feeling like an outcast doesn't feel right to me. It would be interesting to hear what the authors kid thinks from their perspective too, instead of the parent who chose all of this. there could be some bias. Quick, post, Ive had lots of thoughts about feeling like an outsider.
- juanani 5y ago
totetsu 5y ago
I have lived in a country different to the one I was born in for many years now, and It seems to me that the experience of acculturation is a very individual one. How much a person seeks to integrate into a new society is a function of how much the valued integration before they moved there. There are some people who have the chance to integrate with a mini diaspora community, and so not feel like an outsider. There are some 'middle class' people who want to recreate the comforts and social position they expected for themselves. There are people who were always outsiders who are fine to stay that way. Being an outsider helps you see through some of the self-deceit that goes unexamined in a society, and it gives you an opportunity to reflect on your own blind spots. It also gave me the opportunity to spend a lot of time in the wilderness and develop a real connection and understanding of the land I was living in. Maybe far more so than people who have lived there for generations, but are caught up in the Human world, for who the landscape is just a destination/backdrop/resource.
SPBS 5y ago
Hardship makes people more resilient, yeah. I don't think it's exclusively about being an outsider.

56 points by jger15 5y ago

opisthenar84 5y ago

tl;dr: Try something new and be yourself.

TrainedMonkey 5y ago
Just be yourself is advice I see often given when telling people how to behave in new situations, but nobody ever talks about how to be yourself. Who you are and how you behave is a product of both past history and current situation. In other words it is easier to be yourself when you are in a comfortable and familiar situation. But when exposed to a brand new situation/experience "just be yourself" is terrible starting advice for many people because it is completely non-obvious how to do that. I've been given that advice many times and it took some deep introspection and many years to figure out what it meant and how to be myself. This might be self evident for many people, but for me discovering myself meant knowing what made me happy and unhappy. I've done that by being mindful of how I felt before/while/after doing something. This let me establish a core persona who is more influenced by past history and less by current situation. At this point just be myself is a good reminder, but starting with that advice was not helpful at all.
nonrandomstring 5y ago
Part of "just being yourself" is to follow those natural primate instinct to go along, get along, evaluate, adapt and fit-in. That's a good and useful thing. The time when you'll most be "yourself" is in these novel situations. For most people new challenges bring out their best sides. The time when people are least "themselves" is when we're entrenched in established groups, trying to stay "Liked", following the group-think, not risking status, saying what we think people want to hear. The risk of being excluded from an existing group as a "defector/traitor" feels much worse than of "not being accepted as an outsider" when approaching a new group since we expect some latitude. Being the new kid can give you some charm and opportunity. However, it's within existing, rigid structures that speaking your mind (against consensus) can have the most extraordinary effects. It's a huge risk and a fine balance, but someone who has earned respect, and has "standing", can be themselves while also being part of the team then they have become something much more - a leader.
chousuke 5y ago
"Be yourself" is often said, but it's equally often not actionable advice on its own. Not everyone knows who or what they are, and even someone who knows is not necessarily able to be themselves without outside help. I struggle with being myself quite often; there are things I want to do, but I can't simply decide to just do those things... My brain does not work that way. For example, it can take a lot of effort to even say what I truly want to say, because consciously deciding to speak does not necessarily result in me actually doing so, no matter how hard I think the thought.
- k__ 5y ago
  I always have the feeling I LARPed my whole life and "being myself" isn't something that comes easy to me. I wanted to belong and did things to be cool and accepted, without really understanding the mechanisms behind it.
R0b0t1 5y ago
fyi a good tl;dr usually has a clause with "because" in it

atdrummond 5y ago

Interestingly enough, despite the many warnings I received against doing so, researching heterodox economics and economic history helped provide me with a massive network of researchers and speaking opportunities I wouldn't have otherwise been able to access. Not only that, I was able to avoid getting trapped in the morass of extremely qualified and aggressive course mates and students at other top institutions, almost all of whom were filtered into just a few areas of inquiry. I often struggle to properly convey to those unfamiliar with this particular social (or dismal...) science the immense difficulty I would have faced in standing out given my research would have been in competition with dozens of journal articles with similar or identical theses - all at the same handful of publications.

barry-cotter 5y ago
I suggest adding something to your profile about that research. AT Drummond finds nothing useful on Google or Google Scholar.
- exolymph 5y ago
  Quite possible that it's a pseudonym.
  - atdrummond 5y ago
    It's not a pseudonym but it's also not the name I've used in that particular part of my professional/academic life.
- atdrummond 5y ago
  I didn't end up pursuing my PhD to completion due to my leukaemia situation turning quite dire, so I've ended up with a dissertation and 4 articles sitting unpublished. For what it is worth, my research specifically investigated the economic history of the American West and the impact of European Ranchers and their differentiated agricultural systems (compared to Native Americans) on the preservation and/or destruction of iconic keystone species such as the Bison and the Wolf. This work owed a considerable amount to the ideas promulgated by Elinor Ostrom - funnily enough, a political scientist by education who herself went against the conventional wisdom in our field and helped revolutionise resource/agricultural economics. Interestingly, while I ended up going into industry as health permitted, my connections forged while pursuing the above heterodox research has allowed for me to do plenty of economic consulting as well as helping shore up research at various non-profits/think tanks in the policy space. I'm also always happy to speak to HN users about anything I post - feel free to email me at alex <at> staqq.co

Tade0 5y ago

I was born to expat parents far away from my home country - we came back just when I was about to start grade school. As an adult I spent 4 years in Italy which started off with my SO participating in a volunteer program and me tagging along because I secured a remote position, so I was flexible in terms of location. The general conclusion is that you have to have something to run away from or an opportunity to chase. For my father it was a lucrative contract. For my SO a method of breaking away from the environment she grew up in. Also you don't really have to travel to be an outsider. I spent a great deal of time in high school in a catholic bible study circle, even though (or actually - because) I'm an atheist. They were very kind and we had many interesting discussions.

jdmoreira 5y ago
> I was born to expat parents Do you mean your parents were immigrants? Because that's what they were. Expat is the most pretentious colonialist term I can think of.
- jandrewrogers 5y ago
  An expat is not an immigrant. The term "expat" usually denotes a person living outside their native country for a significant period of time. There is no implication that an expat is seeking permanent residency, it is more transient status.
  - toyg 5y ago
    This came up before - the problem becomes that you then have "expats" who never actually go back, but never stop calling themselves such. So transiency is not really the discriminating factor. The term "expat" is indeed a leftover from British colonial times, when you look at things objectively. People who define themselves as expats are typically some sort of migrant for economic reasons, exactly the same as somebody coming from, say, Ethiopia; they just have enough money and culture to escape the label. If we really want to look for something that differentiates expats from regular migrants, we'll find that it is a certain obstinacy to not "go native", to maintain a separatedness from the local culture even after years or decades. Which is, again, a typically colonialistic mindset.

yawnxyz 5y ago

https://archive.ph/eqvmR https://archive.ph/eqvmR

aaron695 5y ago

giantg2 5y ago

Maybe I'm an outlier of the outsider group. Being different has hurt me way more than being an insider. Even being an insider can suck when you don't always agree with the rest of the tribe.

MichaelMoser123 5y ago

> A 2012 review found that being raised in at least two cultures leads, on average, to greater psychological and emotional well-being and higher social competence in adulthood I don't know, there are two sides to every coin: it sucks on many levels to be an outsider. Maybe it's the wrong question to ask about 'happiness', it may well be that one is achieving less as an outsider, on average, but that one is assigning more value to the achievements, as one may have had to work harder compared to the insiders in order to get to where you are... (speaking as a TCK - third-culture kid; never heard of this term before) Still, I very much value the added perspective granted by having been exposed to a different set of cultures, it's a very precious thing to me. Also there may just be some element of Survivorship bias in this kind of observation. There is this kind of logic: 'what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger', still some don't manage to cope, unfortunately.

rakejake 5y ago
Being an outsider gives you a different perspective, however at the end of the day you should have a "home culture" to go back to, and more importantly a home that will accept you. It is possible that you will end up neither here nor there which is frustrating.
- MichaelMoser123 5y ago
  that's not how it goes, in practice one is somewhere in between the different cultures/civilizations, and there are always actors that are not very cosy with each other...

openfuture 5y ago

I will pitch in here just after reading the title. I have been doing this for years, when corona started I stopped wearing shoes and cutting my hair and the treatment I've gotten is definitely different. I appeal to a very different crowd and get dismissed and shunned by a significant majority. The day before yesterday I got arrested on a train for absolutely nothing (they even refused to tell me what I was being arrested for) and no one stood up for me. Someone told me once that by European law I am allowed to keep my identification documents in a safe place when I am not in my home country, so only citizens of country are obligated to produce identification upon request. Therefore I refused to identify myself to the police and will always do so since there are people who cannot get out of trouble by waving a magic card. I could however not avoid the magic card after they handcuffed me threw me in a car and hit me a couple of times. At the police station the levelheaded old guy basically told me that I could go to jail or identify myself so I showed him my university IDs and Icelandic drivers licenses and suddenly I am free to go with apologies. If I was from Brazil I'd be in jail now, however I am not from Brazil so I can now sue these dudes and make sure they are scared to do stuff like this to people. When we opt out of the bad treatment with our IDs then we are giving up on human rights.

ct0 5y ago
You are a nonviolent resistor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_resistance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_resistance
- gerdesj 5y ago
  A resistor is a stripy electronic component. A resister is an entity that resists - probably a person. Mr Google doesn't seem to recognise the difference between resistor and resister, judging by the grey wiggly underline in Chrome. That's quite awful, especially now.
mhitza 5y ago
> Someone told me once that by European law I am allowed to keep my identification documents in a safe place when I am not in my home country, so only citizens of country are obligated to produce identification upon request. Never heard of anything like that https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/entry-exit/eu-citizen/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/entry-exit/eu-c... > it is still always highly recommended to take a passport or ID card with you, so you can prove your identity if needed (if stopped by police, boarding a plane, etc.).

toyg 5y ago

As a complete outsider and a father of two "TCK"s (that term is a bit too close for comfort to "Louis CK"...), this is obviously a welcome read - I can only hope my kids will indeed benefit from the difference that they inherited. I see it every day that there are clear opportunities in being a bridge between different worlds: it provides authority where none might otherwise be warranted, dramatically cuts down on jingoism and traditionalism, provides perspective on one's true condition, and opens one to experience the different, which is a great way to find ones true place in the world. But it can also be brutally lonesome. It's probably more so for me than for my kids, but feeling effectively unable to ever access certain circles, far away from your most trusted friends, and struggling to navigate the codes and conventions of a different society - it can be very, very hard. It definitely made me more self-sufficient, but that's not necessarily a good thing all the time. If the local culture not just ignores you but actively rejects you, it can also be pretty scary (and costly). It's also something that TCKs don't get to choose. I can blame myself for my status, but they should not blame themselves - and still I fear they might. One of them is clearly struggling a bit with reconciling his multiple identities, and I fear it will get worse as he moves into adolescence.

JackMorgan 5y ago
I'm a TCK who grew up in a third world country with a lot of other TCKs. My mother runs programs for TCKs to help them grieve and close the stress loops caused by no longer living in their home culture and having to lose friends and family. Kids that partially grew up in one culture and then moved to another are particularly at risk for depression and loneliness. For example, imagine the cruelty of fellow children to a child who doesn't speak the language very well. Even a slight accent is cause for mockery by peers. Also grades will plummet as they can't keep up to the curriculum in a new language (a common thing many youth use as a proxy for self worth). The biggest advice my mother teaches is to learn to properly grieve for lost friends (truly a skill all humans need anyway) and how to complete stress loops in healthy ways like exercise, crying, and yelling. Stress loops that don't complete can become deep emotional wounds for years. As a TCK, I prefer the company of other TCKs, and often form deep bonds with them quickly. We've both "seen things" and can relate to each other, even if we both grew up in totally different countries. I married a TCK, and find most of my friends as TCKs. The good news is it really does give a person a life long perspective that more people deserve. The more socially fluent TCKs become excellent at casually blending into a culture. Many grow to become really good at making friends. Few take politics too seriously. Many work with people, striving to better the world we live in by helping others as teachers, doctors, social workers, and volunteers. Quite a few found comfort in the armed services, because those turn recruits into third culture adults. The bad news is it does increase risk of depression at all ages, because you can't ever go back and unsee things. You will have opinions that are uncomfortable to locals no matter where you live. You will have sometimes grown up in a much less safe environment and have a hard time adjusting to a safer environment. I had a few incidents that caused some minor PTSD from crimes towards me and my friends growing up. White people are often considered all rich in poorer countries, so white children are more often targets for crimes ranging from small like getting ripped off at the corner store or muggings to kidnapping for ransom. Several of my friends growing up had armed robbers break in and rob their family at gunpoint. My high school crush was almost kidnapped had her Dad not jumped in the van to save her. I've been robbed a bunch of times. Growing up where it's not safe to walk to school alone causes a person to see the world very differently even long into adulthood. In all, I wouldn't trade it for a "normal" upbringing. There was some bad, and I had to deal with some emotional issues from it. But overall I felt like I was given a very powerful gift of perspective and social skills that would enable me to thrive as an adult. Outside perspective can be a tricky thing, because once you have it, it's very hard to lose it. I consider it a very important part of myself, and actively seek ways continue to see things from new perspectives. If you've got TCKs, I highly recommend finding a good grief counselor for them, so they can learn how to close the stress loops. A dozen sessions could make a huge difference in their quality of life as adults, even if they seem perfectly happy and well adjusted. Many TCKs are masters of disguise and can hide away pain and sadness behind a mask for decades until a mid life crisis. Tools to deal with it as children is a fantastic help.

evocatus 5y ago

This article reads exactly like how I would expect it to, were it written by a white. > In candor, I’m approaching this topic with a fair amount of bias. Being an outsider early in my adulthood was the most positive experience I have ever had. At 25, I moved to a foreign country where I didn’t speak a word of the language, and knew not one soul save for a woman I hoped to marry, but who spoke little English. > That woman became my wife, and subsequently became an outsider in the United States. Translation: I subjugated someone of a culture historically regarded as inferior to my own to the supremacy of western culture. Since they are now my wife, this gives me moral clearance to extol the virtues of a disadvantaged upbringing without having actually suffered any of its hardship myself, and also paint myself with an aura of pseudo-accomplishment for having experienced a mere fraction of that lifestyle.

majormajor 5y ago
We seem to have read different articles. Is Spain not part of western culture? Not that the author seems to be speaking for his wife as having gotten advantages from this, or claiming she came from a disadvantaged background, but that he himself feels like he benefited from struggling through the initial language issues. (The adopted daughter came from outside Western culture, but he doesn't so much attribute her current thriving to being brought to the US as much as to going through three different in-US highschools and then going to college in Spain.) And there's a pretty straightforward plausible cause->effect there: if you're on equal economic and opportunity-having footing otherwise, initially coming in as an outsider starts you off ahead in terms of eventually being able to see things from multiple perspectives. I do think the article suffers from not acknowledging the active difficulties suffered by many forced outsiders in particular - vs his moving to another western-culture-country where there was a language barrier but not, say, a history of lynching people like him - but that's different from what you see him doing. I think he has a blind spot between the difference between his "outsider" experiences and a true "disadvantaged" experience, I don't think he's putting words in the mouth of the disadvantaged as so much as glossing over them and ignoring them. (I.e., he's a conservative pundit. :| )
exolymph 5y ago
What. Is there any indication she didn't marry him on purpose?

tayo42 5y ago

Not sure I agree with being an outsider being good. Its maybe at best neutral and just drives your life in a different direction. Its a little vague on the details about why. I grew up not being white enough to be white, not hispanic enough to be hispanic, never quite fit in anywhere and I think it sucked. Maybe the bullying built some character or something? hah. I don't feel real attachment to any culture. I visited the country one of my grand parents came from and felt no connection to the culture or the people other then I looked a little like them. Eventually I ended up moving across the country, NY to California. I don't really feel like a californian, but after a few years out here, The region of NY where I grew up doesn't really feel like home anymore. My family is mostly spread out now too. Its a weird feeling. I think I would attribute my "success" more to winning the lotto by being into computers at the right time then anything like growing up on the outside. The advice overall is probably fine, yeah go out and do new things that aren't comfortable. Glamorizing feeling like an outcast doesn't feel right to me. It would be interesting to hear what the authors kid thinks from their perspective too, instead of the parent who chose all of this. there could be some bias. Quick, post, Ive had lots of thoughts about feeling like an outsider.

juanani 5y ago

totetsu 5y ago

I have lived in a country different to the one I was born in for many years now, and It seems to me that the experience of acculturation is a very individual one. How much a person seeks to integrate into a new society is a function of how much the valued integration before they moved there. There are some people who have the chance to integrate with a mini diaspora community, and so not feel like an outsider. There are some 'middle class' people who want to recreate the comforts and social position they expected for themselves. There are people who were always outsiders who are fine to stay that way. Being an outsider helps you see through some of the self-deceit that goes unexamined in a society, and it gives you an opportunity to reflect on your own blind spots. It also gave me the opportunity to spend a lot of time in the wilderness and develop a real connection and understanding of the land I was living in. Maybe far more so than people who have lived there for generations, but are caught up in the Human world, for who the landscape is just a destination/backdrop/resource.

SPBS 5y ago

Hardship makes people more resilient, yeah. I don't think it's exclusively about being an outsider.