Recipes for Belonging: Let’s cook up solutions to the hunger of isolation!
People are starving for connection. That desperation feeds some of the great crises of our time, from depression to opioid use to screen addiction to political divisiveness and more.
Earlier this year, I explored the power of the simple act of gathering to counter this epidemic with the Gathering Summit.
Now, I’d like to expand upon that effort and explore more ways to inspire and empower people to take action.
I’m calling the new experiment “Recipes for Belonging.” Here’s why:
Cultivating belonging is like making a delicious meal.
There are a lot of different ways to do it, everyone has their own preferences and styles, and no two people do it quite the same way.
Most importantly, there are basic formulas to follow and improve upon.
There are ingredients—specific elements that affect the flavor and the nutrition.
Meals can be prepared and shared in homes or in professional settings.
The analogy works in a bunch of interesting ways:
- Meal :: Gathering or activity
- Ingredients :: Materials & People
- Restaurant or home :: Event venue
- Chef :: Gatherer
- Hunger :: Isolation
- Satiation :: Belonging
- Entertainment :: Flavor
- Nutrition :: Meaningful connection
- Franchise restaurants :: Chapter-based organizations
It goes on, but I think you get the idea. The analogy gives us some fun territory to play in.
Recipes give us a way to share effective techniques across cultures and generations. What does it look like when we replace meals with gatherings?
I’ve seen what’s possible when a simple gathering recipe is open-sourced and made eminently spreadable—
- Hundreds of Jelly coworking groups led to many of the first coworking communities in cities around the world.
- BarCamps showed people the power of the attendee-run unconference format, seeding creative communities everywhere.
- GirlTrek publishes a free organizer guide on its web site, empowering women of color anywhere to organizer their own walking groups.
- 12 Step groups are self-run. Anyone can obtain the playbook and start one (here’s the PDF!)
The list goes on and on. Alongside these are what I call chapter-based organizations, which involved a more formal application process and merit further investigation as well.
Let’s make eminently shareable recipes for cultivating belonging.
We can create new ideas. We can document existing ones. We can investigate established institutions for clues.
And then, importantly, we can get cooking!
By spreading the most delicious and nutritious meals, we help people everywhere satisfy the hunger they’re feeling. When people feel a deep and healthy sense of belonging, I believe some of our most beguiling challenges will start to solve themselves.
That’s something worth working on.
Want to have some fun, build community, and help sort of save the world?
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Next up: Read about a recipe’s fundamental ingredients.
