On Belonging
This has languished in my drafts for a while so I’m publishing it mostly as is. Feels like a relief to just get it out. I remember how effortful it felt to try and tie together the threads.
Belonging is a big word. I want to share 2 vignettes that point to important details and nuances of it, and share some thoughts.
Minimum Viable Belonging
I want to start with the smallest end of the spectrum, “minimum viable belonging” as Microsolidarity (or at least Rich) has spoken to. Minimum viable belonging, in my (our?) experience, happens when:
The same crew sized group of people (3-6)
Come together regularly at least X times with Y regularity and
Periodically reflect on how it is to be together (which makes the “we” explicit)
In practice, the minimum seems to be meeting about 4 times daily to biweekly (from my experience of starting or being in a few dozen crews.)
This is when the first seeds of a persistent group identity sprout (“we’re the X crew”), when the first seeds of peer support and care first sprout (“oh I care about Y person, I wonder how they’re doing), when the first seeds of holding and being held by something bigger than a person start to sprout (“oh this crew has ‘got me’, at least a little bit).
Unconditional Belonging
The furthest end of the spectrum to me is unconditional belonging. To illustrate, I want to share a personal experience that deeply impacted me.
Over Chinese New Year in February, I went to pray to the ashes of my late grandfather, the kind of ritual our family has done since I was a kid. This time, I actually engaged earnestly with it. Among other things, I imagined my grandfather saying to me:
I am your grandfather.
You are my grandson.
We are family.
I am yours, and you are mine.
We belong to each other.
It is written in stone.
It doesn’t matter that you grew up in the US.
I was and continue to be very impacted. Tears streamed down my face the whole time. I feel a lot of charge in my torso even just writing these words. They’ve reverberated in me since that day (although the English vs Chinese has gotten a bit mixed up in me). The grace and embrace of me growing up away from everyone particularly moved me.
Regardless of “who or where” the words were coming from, they ring true to me, very straightforwardly so.
At that moment I started to grasp the depth and hugeness of what it means to belong to my family. It is written in stone. There is nothing that anyone can say or do that could change that fact. There’s no way for anyone to rip the DNA and memories and experiences out of me that make me a member of my family. My belonging to my family is my birthright.
I have the right to a seat at the table, or at least a path to one. I have the right to shape and influence my family by virtue of being a part of it.
It actually made a lot of my broader search for belonging feel quite silly. Here I am, exploring and looking for all these communities to find belonging, and missed that the deepest belonging has been in me and under my nose the whole time.
Of course it hasn’t been silly. This is where stuff like psychological safety reenters the picture. I’ve always belonged to my family, but I haven’t always felt safe, haven’t always felt joy, haven’t always felt accepted/embraced, I haven’t always liked it or wanted it, I haven’t always felt it was important. I want and need those as well.
He continued:
You are the oldest son.
This family needs you.
Being the oldest son has extra cultural significance in Taiwanese culture.
In that moment I realized that my growing desire to be involved with my family has deep roots.
I belong to the family, unconditionally. My rights are unalienable. And they come with the other side - responsibilities. I have responsibilities to this family, and they too are unalienable.
There are elderly and young that need care. There are family members that need support. There are practical matters that need taking care of. The family only works if its members keep it going. While I can never be kicked out, if I want to have the rights that come with a seat at the table, I also need to contribute to this thing, the way that everyone else does.
I can dislike the responsibilities, I can reject them, I can ignore them, I can disown them. But that doesn’t change their existence, that they are written in stone.
There is a thing which is “how comfortable does it feel to be free in this group”, which I’ll call psychological safety. There is a thing which is “how possible is it to kick me out of this group” which is belonging. As many people can attest to, it’s possible to unconditionally belong to my family while experiencing tons of pain and discomfort and hate being there. It’s also possible to feel very free and easy in a group and not belong.
I don’t feel super confident about the way I’ve drawn this distinction but it’s the best I’ve got for now.
On Rights and Responsibilities
When I belong, my needs and wants are considered and cared for. I get a seat at the table. If I don’t like something, if I want or need something, I get to speak up and people will listen and care, even if the decisions/actions don’t go my way.
One framing of this is having rights. What do I have the right to, without getting kicked out - the right to speak up? To (energetically or literally) vote? To propose, to initiate? Rights are good. We like rights. It means I’m not fully at the mercy of a group that may or may not care about or even like me. They’re one of the treasures of belonging.
Responsibility can be a scary word. In this context, they aren’t so much personal obligations, though they can be. They’re the needs of the 3rd thing (the crew, the family group) - where if those needs aren’t met, the 3rd thing dies. The responsibilities don’t need to be met in the sense that (probably) no individuals die if they aren’t met, though certainly everyone is affected, and arguably spiritually everyone involved partially dies.
It’s only been in the last several months that I’ve started to see responsibility as a blessing, as a privilege.
After having friends and family struggle with mental health, medical health, I’ve realized how much of a gift it is to be there for them, for me and our connection.
Loose Thoughts
I’d like to share some loose thoughts that I haven’t managed to tie together coherently yet:
When I belong, I have the right to be here, long (indefinitely)
My belonging is unconditional for the groups that are inextricably part of me, like my family, ancestry, ethnicity, culture
One way I’ve referred to belonging is as bidirectional wanting, of me and the group
This essay feels quite incomplete. I’m quite dissatisfied right now. I hope I’ll continue it another day as my sensemaking evolves. I already have some threads, one that I’m excited about is the relationship between belonging, bringing myself, and service.
I’m glad to share my 2 anecdotes on belonging (microsolidarity crews, family), which have provoked me towards more nuance and clarity. A bit unsure if anyone will find this meaningful to read.
I’d love to hear any thoughts or reflections this brings up for you.