Home in Relation to the Book "Reflection on Exile" by Edward Said

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Personal Essay - Home
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October 19, 2022
The word "home" has minimal significance for me because I was a curious and intrepid child at the start. Being away from home makes me happier since I enjoy playing or hanging out with my friends. I continued to stray from my family's house, but I was unaware of it until I started to live. I've been studying in the US by myself, without my parents or anyone else, since I was 15 years old. At first, it was exciting but also frightening because a new setting brings with it new difficulties. After a few months, I am beginning to fit in with the new setting; I've met some new acquaintances and am becoming more aware of my surroundings. But difficulties in life continue to arise, and when I'm lonely, I create my own definition of what it means to be at home.
Changes
Even if I occasionally think I've met new people, after class, everything changes. People that genuinely think of you as one of their friends will invite you to join them, and those who don't won't give a damn about you. We may be buddies in class or at school, but when class is over, everyone else has their own plans for the evening, and I am regrettably not included in any of them. I feel like an exile from our class. When class is over, I occasionally try to hang around the room in the hopes that someone may invite me to hang out with them, but everyone has already departed. At first, I kept on being friendly and "feeling close" as possible to generate new real friends, but it was kind of sometimes tiring because it seemed like it didn't work, so I just accepted my faith and just continued to study without forcing them to become my friend. I want to experience a sense of belonging to a specific group of friends because I know they will always contact me whether they plan to hang out or not, which is a very reassuring feeling.
The book "Reflection on Exile" by Edward Said, in which he analyzes how exile felt both then and today as well as on a microscale, is an excellent resource for this. This type of behavior is also seen in other groups of species in the animal kingdom, and it is known as feeling exiled when a group of individuals you once thought of as friends do not accept you. For instance, a defeated lion may be banished from his pack if he can no longer rely on his status as the group's leader, which occurs naturally. A similar issue happens in human beings, but in various contexts: if someone isn't essential to a group, they will be left out and forgotten. They aren't necessarily considered exiles by their community, but it will feel that way even if they don't express it. This feeling is not right at first, but I have experienced it before. It is frustrating, but acceptance is the key to getting through it....