Belonging and the Possibility of Community
In a divided world, the work of belonging may be our most powerful act of repair.
I first read Peter Block’s Community around 2015, right as Life is Beautiful was beginning to take shape.
My friend Tony Hsieh recommended it to me. At the time, he was deep in the work of building the Downtown Project, and we were walking parallel paths - two people obsessed with creativity, purpose, and the question of how to build something that truly makes people feel more alive.
That book became a kind of blueprint for me. Not a business manual, but a lens for seeing the invisible systems that make or break everything we try to build: companies, cities, relationships, and movements.
It gave language to something I’d always felt intuitively: the foundation of any great movement or audacious goal is belonging.
The Two Meanings of Belonging
Block writes that belonging has two meanings.
The first is to be part of something - to be known, accepted, and seen. To belong is to be at home. The opposite is isolation, the feeling of being an outsider even when surrounded by people.
The second meaning is ownership. Something belongs to me.
In the context of community, that means I hold a piece of responsibility for what we create together. It’s not someone else’s job; it’s mine.
The challenge and the opportunity is to transform our culture of isolation and self-interest into connectedness and care for the whole.
That transformation doesn’t happen through mandates or systems. It happens through choice and perspective. It begins when people show up not because they have to, but because they want to.
The Context That Restores Community
There’s a passage in the book that I come back to often:
“The context that restores community is one of possibility, generosity, and gifts, rather than one of problem solving, fear, and retribution. A new context acknowledges that we have all the capacity, expertise, and resources that an alternative future requires… The small group is the unit of transformation and the container for the experience of belonging.”
I’ve always believed that is the superpower of true community.
It’s a shift in perspective—from scarcity to abundance, from what’s missing to what’s possible. It’s the difference between a group that’s fighting for survival and a group that’s building the future together.
Communities are human systems given form by conversation.
When those conversations are honest, forward-looking, and rooted in generosity, they create a kind of collective resilience that’s almost unbreakable.
Where Belonging Begins
I’ve seen this truth over and over again.
Whether it’s launching a festival, starting a company, or healing division, belonging is the engine. It’s what makes the hard work feel meaningful. It’s what turns individuals into teammates, collaborators, and friends.
The small group really is the unit of transformation.
Within those circles of trust, creativity, and shared purpose, possibility starts to replace fear. Ownership replaces apathy. Generosity replaces competition.
And when that shift happens, the impact is exponential.
Why It Matters Now
In a time when so many communities feel fractured - politically, culturally, even within families - it’s easy to forget that the solution isn’t found in winning arguments, but in rebuilding connection.
The way forward is, paradoxically, the thing we’ve drifted from: community itself. Restoring our context—one of possibility, generosity, and gifts—is how we begin to heal what feels divided.
(Inspired by Peter Block’s Community: The Structure of Belonging)*