The homing signal

 Have you ever been scrolling through somebody's Instagram story and by chance, they've put up a post or even a song on their story. Not just any song though, a song you genuinely love, the song that's normally playing in your head when you're happy, a song you 'feel' so much that it's actually a little weird. There's this sensation you get, I haven't brought it to words yet but, you start to feel as if compatibility with them would be easy. You can picture starting a meaningful friendship with them owing to that minute detail. A similarity, something you both resonate with.

I'm constantly saying humans, much like everything within our universe have a blueprint. In as much as our sentience has made us able to form individual personalities, there's a framework that unifies us all. Within this framework, there is a homing signal, a compelling force that makes us go wherever we feel at home. Home, a place normally associated with comfort. Feel at home- a phrase meaning get comfortable. In my own experience, comfort is brought about by familiarity. An ability to recognize things you tie meaning to, this could be within someone, in a place, in a song, a scent, a color etcetera. Basically as long as you have the ability to perceive, you have a subliminal quest going on within yourself. A search for that which you find relatable. 

Why? It's a very interesting to think about. Why do I normally feel myself fitting where I feel familiar and is it a bad thing? We're always told that comfort breeds complacency right? So then, in order to move 'forward' we have to feel a pinch or a certain application of pressure, necessity IS the mother of invention right? In the same way though, in moving away from comfort you are looking for more comfort aren't you? (it's becoming maze-like) So it's just a recurring cycle. You find your comfort, you get to enjoy it for a while before your definition alters then it's another 'quest'. 

Back to the basics now, I think the reason we are after familiarity is because it broods understanding. Comprehension! It's basically that simple. Familiarity is the middle-ground on which appreciation takes place. EVERYBODY wants to be understood, get it right, its not a need, it's a want. Everybody wants reassurance that what they feel, what they say, what they observe makes sense. Have you ever had a conversation with a stranger and felt like they got you? Despite the lack of a common background or even the lack of knowledge of your persona, there is an understanding brought about by the familiarity of the situation. It all comes down to that, feeling understood. You watch that Instagram story and you see the appreciation of that song, you start asking yourself if they interpret it the same way you do and whether that could be just one among the things you could 'bond' over.

So in conclusion, it's instinctual to want to be understood. It is intrinsic to our nature. It is not always a bad thing to look for validation, it only becomes poisonous when you start to need it. You start to feel as if without the approval of others, you cannot feel 100% comfortable without it and you begin to adhere and live according to communal standards instead of your own. Much like with everything in life, it's about learning the fine lines and learning to play within them efficiently. I promise I'm not trying to teach you a lesson. Just exposing my views to you so that they plant a seed of resonance and the resonance blooms into a seedling of understanding...you know how it goes from there