Belonging

Published August 21, 2026. Last updated August 21, 2026. By Andrew M. Tan.

It was a cool summer night, quiet, the fire crackling low. I was sitting by the firepit, a cigarillo burning down between my fingers. A thin wisp of smoke going up into nothing.

I was scrolling through comments under an AI post. The usual anger. Vitriol, really.

I kept turning over what was actually underneath it. People feel disconnected. And here was this thing that takes what is uniquely you, human, and gives back slop.

That’s the thought that started this.

Belonging is, tonight, what I think may be the most powerful desire a person can have. A sense of belonging.

A sense of place. Somewhere to replant your roots, where you can feel safe in all aspects of who you are. That sense that I am home, that there is something about this place and these people near me that allows me to feel accepted.

I think that may be one of the greatest gifts a person can have.

I also don’t think this is something a person can obviously seek and build entirely by themselves, because the first step toward finding it outside may be being able to form some version of it on the inside.

Who Am I, Really

So the question is how I form some kind of durable sense of belonging within myself — the kind with roots.

I think the first way to approach this, if it is even possible to use one’s own intellect and thought power to do it, is to identify who I really am.

Who am I?

And of course the challenge here is that whatever answer I come to has to be based on truth. The truth of who a person is. How does a person define their own identity and accept it?

More Questions Than Answers

I realize as I write this that I have more questions regarding the approach to the solution than I have answers. And when I have this many questions, it usually means there is no actual answer sitting clearly in my mind, because every question seems to yield more questions.

If the diagnosis is that I am looking to fill a gap of belonging, then I don’t really have an answer yet. I have questions.

And so maybe that is already part of the answer. Maybe the work is to continually ask the question and accept whatever pieces of that giant puzzle come my way, and not deny any of them.

Even the pieces I think are ugly, dark, disturbing, and frightening to the core. Even the pieces that can break apart the bones of who I thought I was.

Maybe the sense of belonging I am looking for is tied to accepting what is true, no matter how horrible or repulsive it might feel compared with who I want to be, or who I project myself to be.

Some of those projected versions of myself may be real. Some may have come from years of adapting to whatever happened to be around me. Some may have become so familiar that I stopped asking whether they were ever mine in the first place.

And so that internal peace, that sense of belonging I’m seeking so powerfully outside myself, may start with accepting every aspect of myself clearly enough that I can understand what is actually there.

What I Will Need to Prune

Because once I know more of the truth of who I am on the inside and accept it, embrace it, call it out, and anchor myself to it, I think the things outside me will begin to make more sense.

The things that do not belong to me may begin to lose some of their weight against that anchor. The things that fit may become easier to recognize.

I will need to prune. Keep the roots.

Adapting First, Understanding Later

And I guess the struggle I’ve had over these many years of being alive is that I’ve accepted so much of what came my way and tried to mold myself into those shapes and feelings, thinking that those things might somehow reveal the true self.

I think I learned to adapt first and understand myself later.

Maybe the work now is to learn how to know who I am, accept the things I can’t change, embrace them, guide the things I can guide, and highlight the things that make sense and express them truthfully without regret, guilt, or shame.

I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet.

I do think there is something important in learning to recognize myself clearly enough that I stop depending on every new place, role, relationship, or expectation to tell me who I am.

Maybe belonging begins there, with knowing enough of the truth about myself that I can finally feel some sense of home within it. Roots first. Everything else can follow.

The fire’s mostly embers now. I’m still turning it over.

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