4 ways to find belonging

Why and how to become a fan and gather with likeminded people.

Post summary

• Belonging is linked to greater happiness and better health outcomes—yet belonging is dwindling today.

• Here’s an easy way to belong: Become a fan of something or join a group.

• You’ll learn a strange way I found belonging through fandom, and four research-backed ways to find belonging in an increasingly fragmented, isolated world.

Housekeeping

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Audio/podcast version

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The post

A handful of months ago, an old colleague from Men’s Health wanted to run a story about belonging. Specifically about how, in our current era defined by loneliness, being a fan of something can boost your health.

But first, they needed a fan of something.

Apparently, someone in New York City’s Hearst Building recalled my love of the Grateful Dead and suggested I should write the piece.

My colleague sent me the pitch and wrote, “Want to write this? You could lean into your love of the Grateful Dead.”

Here’s the story in Men’s Health. It also published in the January issue of the magazine.

Today, I’m running a Two-Percentified version of that story.

The nice thing about this project is that we’re not constrained by magazine page space limits.¹ I can also go behind the scenes and write unfiltered.²

So that’s what we’re doing with this post. I’ve taken my first draft of the copy and added even more information I think is useful.

Let’s roll …

Find your long strange trip—with others

I remember when I first heard the Dead.

It was about a week into COVID lockdowns. I’d listened to the Grateful Dead at length before the pandemic. Still, there was something about “Sugaree” live from Veneta, Oregon, on August 27^th, 1972—blasted into my ears sometime in March of 2020 in the Mojave Desert outside of Las Vegas—that sent me on a new adventure that wasn’t just sonic.

That listen led me to a group of people I’ve come to love, stand aside at live shows, converse with online, and, ultimately, belong to: Deadheads.

Community. Belonging. It’s a necessary part of us that we can’t get on our own.

It takes stepping outside of ourselves and interacting with others, agreeing on and uniting around something larger than us all. Die-hard sports fans. MAGA crowds at political rallies. Comicon nerds. Fandom can take many forms.

And connections it brings matter now more than ever. The White House recently announced that the United States is facing a mental health crisis, while the Surgeon General said we’re facing an epidemic of loneliness and isolation.

A team of international researchers analyzed the data and concluded, “The absence of belonging is, thus, associated with negative outcomes, including poor mental health and lower resilience.”

As part of the story, I spoke with Brianne Kothari, Ph.D. a social researcher at Oregon State University Cascades. “Depression and social isolation. Those are huge problems in the United States today,” she told me. “Really thinking about how we cultivate and focus on connection and how we cultivate conditions where people feel like they belong, I think is critically important.”

I enjoyed speaking with Kothari because she’s definitely thinking about it. She recently completed a giant study, titled the Community Belonging Measurement Project. It’s a sort of treatise on belonging and how we find it.

She wrote:

Belonging is fundamental to human experience and is linked to better health and well-being. It’s also important to resilience—adapting to and recovering from life’s challenges. More broadly, social conditions play an important role in health.

• Go deeper: Listen to my conversation with Gwendolyn Bounds about the health benefits of gathering.

Collective effervescence

For me, the type of connection Kothari is interested in came through the Dead. It started with that live album from 1972.

Then I found myself going through all the live shows—noticing the nuances between songs based on the band’s trajectory and time in history.

Then I started visiting online forums to read takes on different live shows. I began to occasionally weigh in.

These forums, mind you, were not the type of toxic digital spaces soldiered by keyboard warriors bent on ruining the internet. The spaces were filled with people coming together to connect, converse, learn from each other, and belong. Much like the newsletter you’re reading right now, God bless us.

Eventually I found myself at many of the live concerts of Dead & Company, the modern rendition of the band with a few original members and John Mayer filling in for Jerry Garcia.

I’d stand among folks I increasingly recognized as “my people.” Like the good Dr. Hunter Thompson put it, “You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .”

I had a long conversation with a guy named Dave—65, retired insurance broker—who happened to sit next to me at a show at Las Vegas’ Sphere. We bullshitted like we’d known each other for years, even though I’d never met him and haven’t talked to him again.

At other shows, I’d stand on the floor next to others—didn’t even get their names—and we’d “call” songs together, guessing which tune the band would play next.

We’d high-five after particularly spectacular renditions of songs. During set breaks, we’d tell stories and laugh.

Fun fact: Research shows we’re five times more likely to laugh around other people than we are to laugh alone.

These people were all different in so many ways. Some were young hippies in tie die—with long hair, smelling like patchouli while scrounging up cash to follow the band from show to show. Others wore trimmed hair, tie-dye, and a Rolex. Others were middle managers who brought their kids—in tie dye. But we were all there, in that sonic moment, united as Deadheads.

I didn’t even need the “event” of a concert to find these people.

A month ago, I was wearing this ridiculous tie-die T-shirt at Costco and had a thirty minute conversation with a fellow fan. We would have gone longer had we not been clogging the bread aisle, creating chaos.

Kothari told me that meeting with others in person is key to belonging. It becomes far more powerful when you eventually exit the online forums and enter the arena of life.

“People are craving in-person connection,” she said. “There are certain things that you just don't get via a Zoom connection.”

Researchers call this in-person belonging-induced euphoria “collective effervescence.” It was first coined by the legendary sociologist Emile Durkheim.

The University of Pennsylvania researcher Adam Grant described it as “the sense of energy and harmony people feel when they come together in a group around a shared purpose.”

The good news—for all of you who have no interest in standing next to a bunch of Deadheads during a 33-minute version of Dark Star—is that you can find belonging and collective effervescence anytime you commit you to a cause and gather for a purpose and belong. At a concert, sporting event, volunteer activity—or even a Two Percent event.

These four tactics will get you started.

1. Find something, anything …

… but ideally something that brings you joy.

Locate something helpful, thoughtful, or downright weird or nerdy that excites you.

Volunteer for a cause. Join an outdoors group that does trail maintenance or clean up. Try a pickleball or cornhole league. Watch your favorite team at the bar known for being that team’s bar in your city. Start a book club.

“Interestingly, the library came up as an important community hub in our research,” said Kothari. “Schools also came up as an important community connection place for parents of kids but also for grandparents and neighbors.”

She noted that helping out at schools and other community areas was a great way to find belonging while helping others.

2. Go online (no, really)

The Internet does not have to feel like a soul-sucking vacuum—use it intentionally, and it can have the opposite effect, acting like fertilizer on your soul.

“One of the things that stood out is that some communities are cultivated online. And sometimes those online communities could become important sources of community,” says Kothari.

You’re here at Two Percent—so, congratulations, you’re doing something right.

But Kothari told me online sites become more powerful when you stop lurking and start participating.

Seek the moment where you write “first time long time.” Weigh in on the comments. Ask questions. Make friends. Many forums have in-person meetups, including Two Percent.

3. Go offline, ask questions

A big step of belonging is to show up, Kothari told me.

We often think it’s going to be awkward—and it can be if you just stand there quietly. But Kothari gave me a great life hack to get around that awkwardness: Just start asking questions.

As a journalist, I had a sort of “aha” moment when she said that. I’ve always felt like I could talk to anyone. That’s probably because my background in journalism leads me to start asking people questions immediately.

“Showing up with authenticity and curiosity often leads to more questions and more connections and more information and ways in which you can connect with other people,” Kothari said.

This is why sports fandom can be so rewarding—there’s immediate common ground and shared history.

You share the same highs and lows—celebrating together if your team wins and commiserating together if it loses.

4. Be cool, kind, and welcoming

“Use inclusive language” can sound like some corporate HR department psychobabble—but it matters.

Actively championing diversity, equity, and inclusion and using inclusive language were two key recommendations to help build community in Kothari’s Community Belonging Measurement Project. In short: Make people feel welcome.

The beauty of my Dead shows is that everyone came from different backgrounds and orientations and had different opinions and worldviews. Don’t assume anything about another’s background. Be kind. Be open. And probably avoid politics—unless your group is political in nature. Then lean in.

Have fun, don’t die, and we can have high times if you’ll abide.

-Michael

1. In fairness, given the length of some of my newsletters, that could actually be the worst thing about this project lol.

2. Another “in fairness” … The best thing about Substack is that I don’t have an editor. The worst thing about Substack is that I don’t have an editor.