I’ve Been Chasing Belonging My Whole Life

In a time of disconnection and uncertainty, learning how to build true community isn’t just personal—it’s essential.

As a kid, I moved around a lot, between countries, cultures, and schools. Each time, I had to adapt fast. Learn the customs. Pick up the accent. Figure out how things worked so I could fit in before that familiar “outsider” feeling took over.

And it always came, the ache of feeling like I was on the outside looking in.

I found early refuge in soccer. Sports were one of the few universal languages I could access, and I learned that if I could play well, I could connect. I could be seen. That need to feel accepted, to find “my people,” didn’t stop in childhood, it evolved into a pattern.

Later, it showed up in tech spaces. I co-founded two large associations that grew to thousands of members each. I was hungry to build something shared, something bigger than me. During the pandemic, that drive deepened thanks to social distancing and isolation. I joined a few online communities—one professional, one centered around metamodern philosophy, and another about expanding consciousness. Each one gave me something. A mirror. A challenge. A taste of connection in a disorienting time.

Eventually, the impulse took a more spiritual turn. I helped organize a mystery school. I initiated a men’s group that still meets weekly. I participated in and supported vision quests and Sun Dance events, spaces where belonging wasn’t about fitting in, but about remembering who we are underneath all the performance.

This topic of community, of finding your place … it’s not just a concept for me. It’s personal. It’s lived. And I believe it’s vital for our emotional well-being and for our survival as humans. Especially now, in times of chaos and rapid change.

Community has taken many forms in my life, from expat groups and business school cohorts to yoga circles, internet conferences, and Thanksgiving tables shared with friends. Some I built. Others welcomed me in. Each one taught me something about what it means to belong. All of them asked the same quiet question: Do I belong here?

There’s a quiet ache moving through the culture right now. It’s not loud. Not dramatic. Just this slow, steady hum of something missing. The feeling of being disconnected. Unseen. Alone.

It’s become so common that we’ve stopped noticing it. We tell ourselves we’re just busy, or tired, or "doing our own thing." But underneath, something deeper’s happening. We’re lonely. And it's not just one group, it’s across the board. You can see it in the headlines:

• Men, especially, are reporting record levels of isolation.

• Divorce is rising. So is estrangement between parents, children, and siblings. Even our closest bonds are breaking under pressure.

• Governments are appointing “Ministers of Loneliness.” (That’s real.)

• People are working multiple jobs or gig roles just to make ends meet—burnt out, time-starved, disconnected.

• Trust is eroding—not just in institutions, but in each other.

• Even in spaces designed to foster connection, people tiptoe—afraid one wrong word might get them labeled, unfriended, canceled, pushed out.

We’re social beings. From day one, we need each other to survive. No matter how independent we are, we still crave a place to land, a place where we can exhale and feel, "I belong here."

I’ve spent a lot of time alone in my life. I was an only child. Solitude and I go way back. It’s a familiar presence. But being alone without connection, without belonging, that’s different. That’s the ache we’re feeling and talking about.

The thing is, not every form of belonging eases that ache of solitude. Some only deepen it. There’s a range. On one end, there’s disconnection. On the other, there’s forced belonging—the kind where you have to shrink yourself to fit in. Where acceptance is conditional. Where questioning the group means you’re suddenly out.

Somewhere in between is what I think we’re all actually longing for: mutual belonging.

The kind that says: “You don’t have to agree with me to sit at this table. You just have to bring your full self—and let me do the same.”

But mutual belonging is rare, it takes effort. When it’s missing, we settle and trade authenticity for approval. We confuse “tight-knit” with “closed off,” mistaking exclusivity for intimacy. We call it community, but it’s really just conformity with better branding.

Over the years, each type of community I’ve helped create, from professional associations to men’s groups, offered a different feeling of belonging. Each one taught me something about what it means to show up for others and for myself. They taught me that community isn’t something that just happens. It’s something we build slowly, intentionally, imperfectly, and with heart.

While the shape of each group was different, they all circled the same essential need: to be seen, to be heard, and to be held inside something larger than ourselves (I could write an entire chapter just on what these communities have taught me.)

What matters most is that I’ve seen, firsthand, how deeply we long to belong.

And in a world this fragmented, it's no surprise we either cling to extremes or retreat altogether.

When the world feels chaotic (and let’s be real—it does), we start looking for something stable. Some of us withdraw, isolate, and tell ourselves we don’t need anyone. Others do the opposite. We cling to groups that offer clear answers and strong boundaries. We find comfort in black-and-white thinking and conformity, even if it costs us our nuance and our freedom to be ourselves.¹

So the question becomes:

How do we build true community when we no longer share the same maps, timelines, or even basic language for what’s real?

I don’t have a simple answer. But I know this:

It won’t be solved through better facts alone.

The way forward lies not just in what we know, but how we relate across difference—with humility, with patience, and with a willingness to stay in the discomfort of meaning-making together. We build voluntary belonging—spaces where connection is chosen, not coerced. Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• We welcome the whole person: their ideas, stories, doubts, and quirks. We celebrate their uniqueness.

• We listen more than we lead. Leadership flows from curiosity.

• We get comfortable with not knowing. Ambiguity is where real insight lives.

• We design for trust, slowly, intentionally, through consistency and care.

• We face tension. Discomfort isn’t a sign of failure, it’s an invitation to deepen.

• We honor difference with curiosity, not correction.

These are skills, and you don’t need a big platform to practice them. You just need a living room. A Zoom room. A dinner table.

When we have real community with deep, resilient belonging, we’re less vulnerable to manipulation. Less likely to buy into groupthink. Less prone to latching onto whatever narrative offers the quickest hit of certainty.

It’s like a cultural immune system that protects by connecting. When we’re rooted in authentic community, we become less susceptible to ideological capture, performative outrage, and social withdrawal. We build resilience, collectively.

Strong relationships. Open hearts. Courageous conversations. That’s the medicine.

And it’s not perfect. Even the healthiest communities will have conflict. But the ones that grow through tension? The ones that stay open even when it’s hard? Those are the ones worth building.

Before You Go

Next time you're in a room—real or virtual—pause and ask:

• What kind of belonging is happening here?

• Is it based on connection, or on quiet conditions?

• Is it a community, or a marketplace?

• What small shift could bring us into something more real?

You don’t need to change the world overnight. Just commit to showing up authentically, again and again.

Because the future we want won’t be built through force. Or performance. Or perfect agreement.

It will be built in moments.
In conversations.
In relationships.

One honest exchange at a time.

1. This isn’t failure, it’s very human. But it's also risky. When we’re stressed, we’re more likely to accept community with strings attached. Places that feel safe on the surface, but only if we keep our deeper truths tucked away.

There’s a tension I keep encountering in spaces where people are trying to make sense of what’s happening in the world. We want to talk. We want to understand each other. But often, we can’t quite meet because we’re not all operating from the same foundations.

• Some people know History with a capital H. They carry an understanding of colonialism, authoritarianism, the rise and fall of empires, the legacy of systems we’re still living inside. Others never learned it—or were taught versions so flattened or fragmented they don’t connect to the present at all.

• Some people are deeply attuned to global dynamics—climate collapse, economic precarity, geopolitical tensions. Others are focused on immediate, local struggles: rent, safety, care, survival.

• Some have a modern, rationalist worldview. Others move from postmodern pluralism. Some are grounded in ancient spiritual traditions. And others live between paradigms, cobbling together meaning in real time.

• Add in media bubbles, misinformation, and different emotional baselines—grief, outrage, numbness—and you have a conversation landscape full of invisible landmines.

So we talk past each other. Or we disengage. Or we stick to safe topics. Or we double down and polarize.

The result? We lose the shared center. The object disappears. We stop orienting around a common inquiry or truth, and instead start defending our frames.

And when shared meaning collapses, so does trust. Without trust, community becomes performance—fragile, shallow, easily undone.