The Strange Gift of Outsiderhood

This post is the fifth part of Batshit Crazy and Weirdly Touching: Notes on Culture, Violence, and Identity, a six-part series where I explore how the things we grew up watching, hearing, and laughing at quietly shape who we become.

When you don't quite belong — and find yourself anyway

When you grow up in a culture, you learn its rules without realising. You absorb its stories, its assumptions, its blind spots. You learn when to laugh, when to speak up, when to shrink. You learn what's valued, what's visible, what's off-limits.

But when you live outside your culture — or between cultures — you start to see the rules.

• You notice what was shaping you.

• You question the things you used to take for granted.

• And sometimes, you start to reclaim what you want to carry forward.

This post is about what it means to be a cultural outsider — not as a position of exile, but as a vantage point. A place from which you can choose your values, reimagine your identity, and live more consciously.

The Pain and Power of Not Belonging

I used to think that feeling like an outsider was a problem to be solved. A flaw. A sign that I hadn't done enough to assimilate.

But over time, I've started to see it differently.

Feeling like you don't belong — in your home country, your family, your job, or your generation — is painful. But it's also clarifying. It pushes you to ask:

• Who am I without the roles I was assigned?

• What matters to me, even if it doesn't "fit" the culture around me?

• What do I value more than approval?

This process is lonely at times. But it's also how people grow into themselves. Not by fitting perfectly into a system, but by standing just outside of it long enough to see what else is possible.

Outsiderhood as Cultural Literacy

Living abroad has taught me that every culture has its own absurdities. Its own coping mechanisms. Its own blind spots and genius.

Some cultures hide violence under politeness. 

Others dress it up in rhinestones and sing it on stage.

Take the Porter Wagoner video that kicked off this series. A sparkly-suited country crooner, hosting a family-friendly TV show in 1960s America, singing about murder and infidelity with a smile. It's jarring — hilarious, chilling, and deeply revealing. Because in the world he was broadcasting to, violence wasn't something to flinch at. It was entertainment. It was folklore. It was part of being a man.

Other countries do this differently. In Japan, you might see brutal violence in a samurai film but find shameful silence around emotional abuse. In France, the cinema may be explicit about sex and death, but social life remains guarded and coded. In Australia, we valorise the stoic underdog while ignoring the colonial violence that built the nation. Everywhere, there are different lines between what gets celebrated, what gets suppressed, and what becomes invisible.

When you're inside a culture, these dynamics feel like the natural order of things. But when you've had to learn the rhythms of other societies — their humour, their silences, their rules of belonging — you begin to realise that nothing is neutral. Every cultural norm is a choice. And every choice can be questioned.

That's the gift of outsiderhood. It makes you fluent in dissonance.

And from that dissonance, you can build something new.

Making Peace with Your Inheritance

We all inherit stories — from our families, our countries, our childhood media.

Some of those stories feel like burdens. Others feel like anchors. Some confuse or shame us. Some call us back to ourselves.

In my case, I grew up surrounded by Aussie stoicism and American pop culture. I was shaped by narratives of mateship, bootstraps, and heroism, even when they didn't quite fit. Now, living in France, I see how other cultures carry their own myths — about refinement, rebellion, gender, history — and how those myths are constantly bumping up against each other in my head.

To live meaningfully, especially across cultures, means becoming a kind of curator. Choosing what to carry forward. What to reinterpret. What to lay down.

You don't have to reject where you come from. But you also don't have to swallow it whole.

You can say: I see where this came from. I see how it shaped me. And I choose something else.

That's what makes outsiderhood not just a wound, but a practice — a way of living with curiosity, courage, and self-respect.

Reflection Questions

1. When have you felt like an outsider — and what did it teach you about yourself?

2. What cultural messages or assumptions have you unlearned as you've grown older or moved through different communities?

3. What parts of your cultural inheritance do you choose to carry forward — and what are you ready to release?

Activity: Cultural Values Mapping

Draw a simple two-column table.

• In the first column, list messages or values you inherited from your upbringing or culture (e.g. "don't talk about emotions," "success means money," "always be polite," "family comes first").

• In the second column, ask yourself: Do I still believe this?
  If yes — why?
  If no — what would I like to believe instead?

Use this as a way to notice what you're still carrying — and to start consciously choosing what values are truly yours.

Next week

Standing Outside the Frame: Reflections on Belonging, Violence, and Cultural Gaze is all about cultural frames — the invisible rules and values that shape what we find normal, funny, sacred, or beautiful. From Porter Wagoner to Italian opera, Mexican corridos to children's media, this piece reflects on what it means to grow up in one culture and see it from another. 

Batshit Crazy and Weirdly Touching is a blog series about the strange, sometimes unsettling ways that popular culture, violence, and inherited stories shape our sense of self. Inspired by a single YouTube video of Porter Wagoner singing about murder on family television, the series unpacks how our childhood entertainment reflects deeper cultural values — and how becoming aware of those values can help us choose who we want to be. Read all six parts here.