Ever since I can remember, I was part of my own culture really. As in, my own little micro-culture. I'd sort of introduce other people partially 'into it' in primary school - it's very strange, without even soliciting it, I had my own quasi small personality cult, especially in year 7 (ages 12) the guys would try and impress me and fight to sit next to me on the mat! Behaviour wise, it was a very good thing I went separate ways to them in high school, since I might have ended up in some bad places like they did unfortunately. I was 'the pack leader' in some weird way, and would easily act 'naughty' to impress them. "Don't let others drag you down" my year 7 teacher said. I remembered those words. In year 4 I introduced marbles and soon the whole school was playing them until they got banned. In year 7 I was obsessed with AC/DC and by mid year all the boys in the class were obsessed too. I quickly grew out of that phase, and it was replaced by an affinity for 60's psychedelica and 90's grunge which persited until I was 19 - now I'm more of a silence kind of guy, but once in a blue moon I'll listen to a tune, mainly classical though.
In high school I had about 8 different people I'd be semi-close friends with, hanging out with outside of school, but each belonged to separate groups. There was no sub-culture in any of my experience that I fit into or was drawn to. I went to a very sporty school, with engineering types on the one hand, and sporty types on the other. If I went to a school that was more humanities and arts focused, I think things could have been quite different. I really was in my own little culture for high school - into art, music no one else really listened to, and deeply spiritual and religious - all things which no one else had in common with me (and I went to a religious (Catholic) school). But nor do I regret going to that school, I loved it.
At uni I felt different to those who shared my same beliefs, and different to those who didn't have my beliefs. Within 2 years I felt 'a part of the uni community' in a comfortable way, but still, like everywhere I never felt like I truly belonged. But this feeling of never belonging I see as a great gift, since I no longer expect to belong anywhere outside of myself, since I'm at home within myself where I find not just myself (or that would be tedious and vain) but Other: the Divinity, the universe, and all humanity. It's a oneness, a total feeling of belonging, paradoxically arrived at through not-belonging. Not that I feel myself to be merged with what is Other in a way to loose my distinct identity and being, but more like a cleaving oneness, a unity, a solidarity.
There's much more that could be said, and certain key aspects I haven't even touched upon. Nevertheless, these particular experiences of what would seem to be a loner-culture, have helped form my own sense of individual identity, perhaps at one stage partly in relation against or apart from others, but exponentially for some time now, wholly in relation to and with others. I thus have a keen desire for each person to cultivate their individuality. Through belonging to 'my own culture' - ever influenced, fined tuned, etc., by encounters with people of all walks of life, and that grace with which each day is pregnant - my own beliefs have been solidified yet not to serve as a wall, but as a platform that helps me appreciate and see the true-self of my self, and others - a platform for authentic human encounter shed of pretense and insincerity.
