Facing Anxious Times Together, Part 5 (#393)

Summary

Religion on the Mind – Facing Anxious Times Together, Part 5 (#393)
Host: Dan Koch | Guests: Kristin Tiedman & Brian Adolf | April 9, 2026

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Episode Overview

In the fifth installment of the “Anxious Times” miniseries, host Dan Koch reunites with frequent collaborator Kristin Tiedman and welcomes Brian Adolf, founder of Architects of Human Connection and co-founder of Join Philly. The conversation delves deeply into the psychology and practice of community, group belonging, and civic engagement—focusing on how “collective effervescence” and club culture can counteract modern isolation, especially in unsettled and anxious times. The trio uses their personal experiences founding Join Philly as a case study for fostering connection in a fragmented era.

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Major Discussion Points & Insights

1. Recap & Existential Psychology in Anxious Times ([03:51]–[08:47])

• Series Refresher: Dan summarizes the existential psychology framework explored in previous episodes—accepting anxiety as natural, recognizing “boundary situations,” letting go of impossible goals, and identifying actionable, value-aligned desires.
• Current Focus: Episode 5 zeroes in on “community involvement,” exploring how healthy anxiety prompts us to expand our social worlds, often leading to group action and collective involvement.
• Quote:
  “Healthy anxiety, often having us reach out to others to help us solve problems—boom, that’s community.” (Dan, [07:40])

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2. The Origins of Join Philly and Community Building ([08:21]–[13:17])

• Founder Meeting Story: Kristin describes meeting Brian via Creative Mornings, a global series for “creatives,” before connecting through Brian’s Fishtown Choir, a communal singing group in Philadelphia.
• Fishtown Choir as Prototype: Brian discusses how the casual, inclusive format of singing in bars created “participation on-ramps” for newcomers and built real community—participants’ heart rates even synced up from group singing!
• Quote:
  “I get a lot of credit for creating this community choir, but like, nah, I just wanted to buy a new guitar and pay for it… But it turned into this kind of beautiful thing. This community arose out of it.” (Brian, [11:36])
• Cultural Connection: Dan and Kristin note the scientific research behind collective ritual (e.g., communal singing), often overlooked by liberal religious spaces.
• Memorable Moment:
  “Collective effervescence. Emile Durkheim, that’s the term for this collective singing… But it’s also… January 6th, that was collective effervescence… It can be good or bad.” (Brian, [14:27])
• Key Insight: The phenomenon of group ritual can foster powerful social bonds—for any ideology.

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3. Designing for Tangible Belonging: The Club and the Fair ([15:41]–[21:18])

• Events as Catalysts: Kristin and Brian realized event creation (like “beer camp” for progressive theologians) is both complex and vital for authentic connection.
• Pivot to Activities Fair: Inspired by already-thriving niche groups (like running clubs), they shift toward organizing an “Activities Fair”—a high-school-style club fair for adults. Their pilot unexpectedly attracts 350+ attendees, showing widespread hunger for connection.
• Join Philly’s Directory: They create a comprehensive, filterable online directory of Philadelphia clubs. The focus: broaden civic participation and make connection accessible.
• Quote:
  “What Join Philly is is creating participation on ramps for people to find belonging—…and to find belonging with their place.” (Brian, [23:01])

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4. The Need for Civic Connection in an Age of Isolation ([23:36]–[32:12])

• Loss of Traditional Spaces: Brian and Dan connect the dots between declining church attendance and the loss of repeated, ritualized community—what Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone” diagnosed years ago.
• A Broader Vision: Brian highlights Join Philly’s evolution: from merely connecting people to clubs toward bolstering civic infrastructure and easing “the psychological price of participation.”
• Bar as Civic Anchor: Anecdotes about how, in past eras, local bars provided addresses for unhoused people so they could vote—underscoring how authentic belonging jump-starts civic action.
• Quote:
  “There’s a bunch of factors where everyone’s kind of broke, everyone’s tired. It’s just everything sucks. So, like, how do we go out and do those things?” (Brian, [24:07])
• Collective Action in Crisis: Dan references Minneapolis organizing during the ICE raids as a vivid example: anxiety and risk can be transformed into the fuel for powerful collective action.
  “The flip side of the coin of anxious times being so shitty is that they tend to produce at least the possibility of real energy for actual change… real grist for the mill.” (Dan, [28:48])

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5. Technology, Individualism, and the Cost of Community ([32:12]–[41:56])

• Technology and Fragmentation: As people become more self-sufficient (smartphones, apps for everything), they lose routine communal touchpoints—like bars or landline phones where neighbors would naturally connect.
• Commodification of Friendship: Services like Uber or DoorDash perform what friends or family once did, further eroding the sense of mutual, inconvenient, sometimes-annoying dependency essential to community.
• Quote:
  “Annoyance is sometimes the price of friendship. Like, we can’t live in a world where we’re just not going to be annoyed with our friends or people we love… it’s a feature, not a bug.” (Kristin, [36:18])
• Participation Gap: Brian introduces the concept—the growing disconnect between desire to belong and easy, meaningful entry points. He emphasizes that streamlined digital solutions are not enough.
• Events Must Compete with Dopamine: Dan and Brian muse on how even enriching in-person events now must “compete” with the constant dopamine hits of technology—requiring more compelling, participatory experiences.
• Quote:
  “Maybe we need to have better experiences and have more things to do… maybe just make your event better.” (Brian, [37:53])
• The Future of Connection: Brian questions the durability of “connection culture” trends should tech fads move on—arguing for designing belonging systems that stand the test of time:
  “I’m totally over everyone doing connection right now in the Zeitgeist. I’m like, we just connect… But we’re still humans that still have these human needs to belong. That’s what I’m building Join Philly for—how do you sustain this in terms of what’s needed for the next hundred years?” (Brian, [42:04])

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Notable Quotes

| Timestamp | Quote | Speaker | |-----------|-------|---------| | 07:40 | “Healthy anxiety, often having us reach out to others to help us solve problems—boom, that’s community.” | Dan Koch | | 11:36 | “This community arose out of it… I just wanted to buy a new guitar and pay for it.” | Brian Adolf | | 14:27 | “Collective effervescence… It can be good or bad.” | Brian Adolf | | 23:01 | “What Join Philly is is creating participation on ramps for people to find belonging—and to find belonging with their place.” | Brian Adolf | | 24:07 | “There’s a bunch of factors where everyone’s kind of broke, everyone’s tired… like, how do we go out and do those things?” | Brian Adolf | | 28:48 | “The flip side of anxious times being so shitty is that they tend to produce at least the possibility of real energy for actual change.” | Dan Koch | | 36:18 | “Annoyance is sometimes the price of friendship… it’s a feature, not a bug.” | Kristin Tiedman | | 37:53 | “Maybe we need to have better experiences and have more things to do… maybe just make your event better.” | Brian Adolf | | 42:04 | “We’re still humans that still have these human needs to belong. That’s what I’m building Join Philly for—how do you sustain this… for the next hundred years?” | Brian Adolf |

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Important Segments and Timestamps

• [03:51] Dan’s overview of the “Anxious Times” existential psychology framework
• [08:21] Kristin and Brian introduce their origin story and the birth of Join Philly
• [11:36] Brian discusses the unintentional creation of community through Fishtown Choir
• [14:27] Explanation of “collective effervescence” (Durkheim) and its double-edged power
• [18:03] The idea and evolution of a club/activities fair for adults in Philadelphia
• [24:07] Discussion of the participation gap and psychological barriers to community
• [28:48] The Minneapolis organizing example: how anxiety can fuel activism and belonging
• [36:18] The necessary “annoyance” of friendship and reframing inconveniences
• [41:05] Can technology ever really fix belonging? What comes after the “connection” boom?

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Takeaways

• Belonging is both psychological and practical: To address modern anxieties, we need more than online networks—we need on-ramps that lower the barriers to regular, in-person collective action and community.
• Group rituals, even simple ones like singing, create real connection—but can also be wielded for good or ill.
• Technology exacerbates isolation in subtle ways, often by atomizing and commodifying what used to be done collectively. The antidote is not more tech, but better-designed in-person connection.
• Even in “anxious times,” there’s a transformative opportunity: Collective crisis can galvanize real participation, mutual aid, and meaning.
• Sustaining connection requires systems built to last, not just to ride the next trend: the work of community will always matter.

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For Listeners

If you want to learn more about the Join Philly project, communal rituals, or how to lower the “psychological price of participation,” check out the full episode or join the conversation with Dan via Patreon.

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This summary omits ads, promotional reads, and non-content banter, focusing exclusively on the main conversation and ideas.

Transcript

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[C]

Welcome back everybody to Religion on the Mind and more specifically to this miniseries we are calling anxious times. I'm Dr. Dan Koch, licensed therapist and Psychology of Religion researcher and I'll be joined in these episodes of by a longtime friend of the POD and collaborator, Kristen Tiedman. For each Anxious Times episode, we're going to be highlighting one or more specific concepts from existential psychology and practically applying them to living through unsettling periods like the present moment. This first set will include five or six episodes and we plan to return for more later on, possibly in the fall. Let's dive in. Welcome back, everybody, to Religion on the Mind and the fifth of five installments of this Anxious Times series. For now at least, we may do some more of these in the future. I am joined again, as with the other Anxious Times episodes, by Kristin Tiedman. Hi, Kristin.

[A]

Your classic anxious girl,

[C]

Kristen and her triple crown. We are also joined today. We're mixing it up by Brian Adolf, founder of Architects of Human Connection and co founder of Join Philly, which is how the two of you know each other. Kristin, you are the other founder. So, Brian, thank you for joining us today.

[B]

Thank you. Hello.

[C]

What I'd like to do is start by situating today's conversation as the fifth of five parts. So I'm going to go very quickly through the sort of context of episodes one through four. But again, this whole series, the Anxious Times episodes, is about using specific insights from existential psychology, which was formed in the aftermath of World War II, to help us both survive anxious periods of time like our current moment, as well as to kind of thrive. And I took survive and thrive, and I moved them further apart because I'm uncomfortable with the rhyme. It sounds a little too Wellness Instagram for me, but it is actually what they are, the right words. So I kept them both in. I just made it less pithy. So episode one, anxiety is natural. We talk about how for existential psychologists, anxiety is a natural consequence of big old brains that can think about the future. And some of that anxiety is actually healthy and encourages us to expand our world. That is the first connection point with what we're talking about today, which is sort of community involvement. If you're expanding our world, that's going to probably mean involving other people. Getting into episode two, we talked about boundary situations. These are times when the old systems are no longer working and they reveal fresh to us some of the limits of reality, the limits of our current situation within that reality. We also talked about what Kristen was calling the poly crisis. So all these different things that are happening layered on top of each other and we are swimming in that water, so to speak. On to episodes three and four, we talked about how what we can do is Accept the hard limits of reality, not fight them. And as we do that, we can then identify what we call impossible goals. These are things that are not achievable, but they would be great if they could be achievable. And through that, we figure out, okay, why would it be great? What is it telling me about myself that that's the thing that I want to do, even though I can't do it within the current constrictions of reality. Finally, through that, we can identify things that are theoretically achievable, whether or not we actually achieve them. They are not violating sort of the limits of reality. We call this the desirable. And they tend to be aligned with the values that we figured out about ourselves through. Through thinking about items under that heading of the impossible. Which brings us to today. So as the first connection with the previous episodes, as I said, expanding our world, healthy anxiety, often having us reach out to others to help us solve problems, Boom, that's community. But then the second connection, and I'll just leave these here, we can come back to them as we need, is that once I have set my sights on something in that category of the desirable from episode four, some of those things are accomplishable by myself. Like, maybe my goal is to become really well read because I care. I have a high value of education. Okay, I could do that by myself. But even if I just want to, like, let's say, learn philosophy, I'm probably going to do a better job if I involve someone who teaches philosophy or get into a discussion group with other people. If my goals are more this worldly, if they have to do with civic action or certain, you know, I care about the parks of my city or I want this for the young people in my town. Well, now, pretty soon in almost all of those cases, we are getting into collective or group action. Collective or group activities. Group involvement in one way or another. And so that is why for part five, we are talking about Kristen and Brian, their work with Join Philly. And we're going to go from there. So either of you, Kristen, Brian, did that make sense? Do I need to clarify anything that I just said, or are you giving me a passing grade for that long winded introduction?

[A]

I mean, I think it's good, but I've been here for the whole ride, so maybe.

[C]

Brian, you're cheating. Yeah, you're cheating.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Sounded good to me.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

All right. It made sense. So, Kristen, let's start with you because you brought Brian to my attention, and Brian is running this organization called Join Philly. But you helped him found it. So walk us through, like how did you guys get to working together? You know, obviously listeners have heard a lot of your story through these episodes. Let's start by tying it to that.

[A]

Yeah. Well, I met Brian initially through something called Creative Mornings and I had gone to this. This is a worldwide organization that they have morning talks one day, one Friday a month. And they are generally people in the creative field. That has a pretty broad definition, but inspiring. There's a little breakfast. Hopefully you get to chit chat with some people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I actually had met people through that. I had gone back when I lived in Philly like the first time. And then I started going when I moved back and I actually heard Brian. I don't know if I think I told you this. Someone told me that you were the founder of Fishtown Choir, which is another Brian's. Brian does it all.

[C]

It's on your current coffee mug. Yeah, I saw that.

[A]

Yes. Which is as you can guess, singing by choir. It's a communal group singing usually more popular songs, not like the classic choir songs.

[C]

It's the official choir of the underwater city of Atlantis. Right.

[B]

That's what I'm assuming for Fishtown.

[A]

Oh my gosh. Well, Fishtown is. Brian was also. This is a neighborhood in Philly where Brian was one of the also originators of its like up swing here of popular. Now it's got. Oh, oh yes.

[C]

Brian Adolf gentrification zone.

[B]

Oh my gosh.

[C]

No.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Well it does have. If you, if you look at the best restaurants in Philly now, like a ton of them are in Fishtown.

[B]

So Fishtown's the hot spot. I'm still one of the new timers. I've only been here I think 19 years. So I'm still like the new guy, the new head.

[A]

But that's better than everyone who's moved there in the past five years.

[B]

But you know, actually I, I'll just jump in about Fishtown Choir just cause that's part of the origin story. And I am actually interested to hear Kristin because I kind of don't remember how we started. Like I have my origin story which had to do with this documentary film I'm sure will come up, which I know is like did you watch it yet? So. But I know we were talking before, but Fishtown Choir, I realized afterwards is what we call a bar choir. It's me and a friend of mine who was my kids elementary school music teacher. We have a very interesting dynamic. She's 27, maybe 28 now. I'm 46. Everyone thought either she was we were married or that I was her dad. And we play in. It's just the two of us, but we play in bars and clubs in mostly in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia. And people come in, they buy ticket, we give them lyric sheets to, you know, it's usually themes, you know, popular songs. She teaches three part harmony. I do the music, I play guitar. Then we record it. It's cool, it's super successful. It was great in the beginning.

[A]

Look it up, look it up.

[B]

You can see the slides you can see on YouTube. One of the things that I was surprised by was the number of people that came by themselves and were that new to Philadelphia and the community that formed out of it. And I get a lot of credit for creating this community choir, but like, nah, I just wanted to buy a new guitar and pay for it. And I was like, let me do this choir thing. And it's like a super cool hack. If you're a musician and you want to like start playing guitar. I used to play, I went to school for it. But I stopped for many years where we were doing every two weeks. Every two weeks I got to play guitar in front of 100 plus people. And they cared not at all about me because they were all singing. So it was this co creation thing. But I'm up there playing like I don't have to ask any of my friends who are like, come see my shitty punk band. But it's like, nah, I didn't care. My friends went. But it turned into this kind of beautiful thing. This community arose out of it. And then when we started the joint Philly thing that was kind of going through me of like, oh, seeing that, that seed of it and that a lot of the work I'm doing now has to do with that. Especially people moving to the city, especially people doing things alone and creating these participation on ramps, which I could talk about later.

[A]

But yeah, yeah, well, I. Okay, this is exactly. And what's funny is I had come back to Philly not that long before and a girl I had already met through Creative Mornings told me about Fishtown Choir. She lived in Fishtown too. I was living in basically Fishtown, technically the edge of Fishtown beyond. But I was actually Dan. This is kind of harkening back to the cognitive science of religion thing too where it's like communal singing and group singing being so good for people in a psychological well being sense.

[B]

Your heart rates actually sync up.

[C]

Yep.

[A]

Isn't that crazy?

[C]

Well, this is like this is a hobby horse of Trip Fuller, who runs Homebrewed Christianity podcast and puts beer camp Theology Beer camp, which we go to each year. That, like, this is something that liberal Protestants have really kind of dropped the ball on and that more conservative Christians do a much better job on, is they are much more in line with the research of how collective singing is. And collective ritual binds people together. And Tripp's point is, you don't have to pair that with conservative theology. Like, anybody can do that. We do it at concerts. And I was thinking about that, Brian, when you were talking about it's this hack to also make sure I'm playing guitar every couple weeks, I thought about people who joined the worship group at their churches. It's whether or not whatever's going on for you in your own mind, and even if it's like, I like some of it, I don't like some of it, or whatever, it's an excuse to play music. And most of the people also don't care about you. They're engaged in their own singing, their own kind of collective ritual together.

[B]

Collective effervescence.

[C]

Collective effervescence. Emile Durkheim, which is.

[B]

That's the term for this collective singing. And a lot of this, like, getting together, even in these small groups. But it's also. I mean, January 6th, that was collective effervescence. But that's just. All they're running is just getting people together and doing things. It creates that shared emotion and that energy and. And it's. It's a thing. And it's. Could be good or bad.

[C]

Yeah. The. The 1939 Nuremberg rally, also collective effervescence. It can go both ways. It can be used for good or

[B]

ill, but it's human.

[C]

Like, whether it's.

[B]

I mean, we think that's wrong, but a bunch of people don't think, you know, think. Think everything I do is wrong. So.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Well, I. So I was interested in just learning about it, and my friend was like, that's him. That's a founder. But we ended up talking about very quickly my business and what I was doing at the time. And Brian has also a knack for helping people who run their own businesses kind of get their feet under them a little bit more, especially in terms of the books and the money side of things. Yeah.

[C]

Especially the important logistical details.

[A]

Yeah. He's like, all these people are, like, working for no money. I'm like, that sounds just like me. And Beau's always like, please stop working for free for everyone. But anyway, so Again, it really quickly evolved from there. Brian and I, I think, had, dare I say, synergy where we were just like, talking about stuff. He. He had a lot of faith in what I was doing, which, you know, as Lady Gaga said when she was in that one movie.

[C]

Star Is Born with Bradley Cooper, Star is born.

[A]

Remember all those clips where she's like, just person believes in you. It can make all the difference in the world.

[B]

Anyway, I was Kirsten's Lady Gaga.

[A]

You were my.

[C]

You were the Bradley Cooper. That's how I understood it as well. Yeah. Again, playing guitar in a bar. That's Bradley Cooper in that first after his big show.

[B]

That's how they also do that song for Lady Gaga night. You can.

[A]

Where's the wall with all the red threads?

[C]

Welcome to A Beautiful Mind. Okay, continue, please.

[B]

So.

[A]

Okay. So one thing Brian and I quickly identified is how important we found events to be and what they're capable of doing. People coming together. And that was something, again, for many people will know. I was helping with beer camp at the time in a. I mean, really an integral role. Like, I was really setting pretty much everything up with Tripp. And I was like, yeah, it was my third year doing it, trying to think, I guess. I went to the second year when Brian and I were already chatting about things, and I was like, man, it's so hard. There's so much involved. But it's so beautiful to see the outcome and what people need, the space they need to do this. So again, I'll try and not go on and on here, but we were like, what can we do from this? What does this mean? And can I do this more as a business? That's kind of where it got really practical. But then we were like. Then we were like, well, we need a proof of concept. And that's where it was. It was. And correct me if I'm misremembering anything, Brian, but I think that's where we kind of were like, we gotta do something. And we. And if we just start it, you know, we can just create it. We can make it anything we want to be that's gonna help bring people together. And that's where we got talking about the club. So is that how you remember things, Brian?

[B]

I don't remember it. So this is. I don't remember anything anymore.

[A]

Dust off the brain.

[B]

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Cause you were really into events. And when I met Kristin, we worked together in her business, and I was like, yeah, just work with me. Huge fan. I saw all this potential in her. And then she left me. But that's for another podcast.

[A]

That's tough. Oh, man. Yeah.

[C]

Well, we. I mean, did you leave for the reasons that we've been discussing in episodes one through four?

[A]

Yes. I mean, yeah. But it's also really snowballed upon the birth of Juni. It was like, oh, here you go. And here's your diagnosis. Anyway, all this stuff, I'm like, kristen,

[B]

we're doing this and we're going to do this, and I'm going to help your business and we're going to do this. And you're like, I'm pregnant. I was like, God damn it. Well, the thing which I bring up often, Kristen, our initial idea was to do what we're now doing, the Philadelphia Activities Fair, which is in a week or on next Sunday. We wanted to do an in person event. And it was funny. Cause I remember we were sitting down at La Colombe coffee shop talking about. We talked about run clubs for a hot minute. And I'm going, there's so many running clubs in Philadelphia of all different, like, types and affinities and everything. It'll be so. We'd be so cool if we bring them all together in one event. And there's like the shared interest of running, but then there's all different types of people. And this can further go into the Robert Putnam bonding versus bridging thing, where there's your shared interest of bonding. And then bridging is kind of, you know, inter in different groups. I thought that was such a great idea. And then I met this awesome guy, Craig, who runs Mural Miles, which is a really cool running club that also paints murals. And Craig's kind of the guy, and he's like, oh, yeah, we already all know each other and we already do that. I was like, oh, I'm obviously not a runner. So that already existed. And then we went right on to saying we should do, like, an old school activities fair, which is what we're doing now, a high school club fair, but for adults. And so that was the whole concept, which I keep telling people. Like, oh, the event was the thing that was like, oh, we need some kind of foundation. And backtracked it into creating a directory. So the website is mainly a directory of clubs that you can join. And there's like, well over 100 clubs on it now. And very quickly got pulled into this kind of national, I don't know scene. There's people all over the country doing their version of Join Philly. And it's super cool. It's super interesting. Who's doing it. I have a lot of issues with a lot of ways people are doing it. I find it fascinating. It's most of it just citizens like us, just people that are interested. The same challenges. How do we make this sustainable but seeing how important it is. So we did a pilot version of this in August in the summer. A pop up activities fair we called it. There's about 14 groups there. It was disgustingly hot. It was like 98 degrees if you recall Kristen. And we had over 350 people come and it was just such good vibes. There was nothing to buy. It wasn't a vendor fair and people. Yeah, we didn't create anything. This is just in the zeitgeist. There's a lot of tailwinds for this kind of work. Everybody just wants to get out, wants to do things, wants to connect. And we have. I'm at 960 RSVPs for the one next week. So there's going to be well over a thousand people in the Philadelphia Ethical Society which I know familiar you are with ethical societies but super cool. The humanists go there which is as close as I get to religion.

[C]

Not after I'm done with you, Brian. I'm kidding.

[B]

That's what joined me is.

[A]

Well, one thing I was gonna add there that just. I mean again just painting the picture is these clubs already exist. It's not like we made all these clubs but the infrastructure of connecting them and I mean the directory, it's so cool. It's got all these tags. You can filter it kind of interest or different. Different sort of like groups like it's. It can be very customized and that's something that. It's tough for some of these clubs to reach a broader audience if they are not already known about because it's. They might just have an Instagram, they might not have a website at all. They might just.

[C]

Yeah. And if all they have is an Instagram, they're competing with the algorithm for what it wants to show you. Because that is what's important to meta. Right. It's not important that people get connected. So you gotta put in your own additional elbow grease to help people find this stuff. Right?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It's easier to get the word out because of things like Instagram. But why the fair is gonna be so good as an in person and way more effective is because of like the tireless scrolling and it just. It doesn't work as well. And that's what we saw in the pilot and talk a bunch of People that are doing similar fairs around the country. Yeah, same kind of thing. So that's the most exciting I'm most excited about because it's a much different experience when you're face to face with somebody and you're like, I really want to do this. But the challenge, as Kristen was saying, is getting the word out, but also getting people to not only to find them, but to make it easier to find them. That's honestly the work I'm more interested in now is all right. And the way I keep describing, there's all these really cool clubs in Philadelphia. There's all these great things. There's also these really great resources that we have as it's becoming more of a civic thing. So join Philly. When we started it, we were both thinking, all right, this is about finding really. It's about belonging. More so than the other things is how do you find belonging with other people? By joining something.

[A]

By joining a club and something you go to repeatedly.

[B]

Exactly. And kind of like church, right?

[C]

Yeah. Repeated regular interaction with the same group of people. Yeah.

[B]

And we've lost a lot of that with the decline of church attendance, which I think is on someone upswing the decline of work, meaning seeing people in person at work. So that's why there's such a need and an interest and a design, a hunger for this kind of meeting. So we're looking at this belonging to other people. But now join Philly has expanded to actually joining Philadelphia. And I'm looking at as finding belonging with place. So there's all of these civic resources and all these great things. And I realized a lot of them are poorly designed and they're opaque, and it's. A lot of this is for people like us. And on the other side is a tremendous number of people that want to be involved. I see them on the Philly subreddit. They're all over right of I have no friends. I'm looking friends. I can't find something to do. How do I do this? I'm like, all right, there's something here. So the middle is. I'm calling this participation gap. And what join Philly is is creating participation on ramps for people to find belonging is really, in essence, what it is and to find belonging with their place. So, yeah, we have all these great resources, like about voting and how to be more civically engaged. But it's. I'm organized to have, like, identity cost that there's the psychological price of participation. People want to go do things, but why aren't they? There's a bunch of factors where everyone's kind of broke, everyone's tired. It's just everything sucks. So like how do we go out and do those things? And I think of it too as who do I have to be to go to that thing. And that's one of the goals of what we're trying to break down to make that participation easier.

[C]

It's deck days at Lowe's and the savings are stacked right now. Pros get 15% off all in stock composite decking from top brands like Trex, Timbertech and Deckorators. Plus get a free DeWalt 20 volt max 5amp hour battery. When you buy a select DeWalt tool. The deck's stacked in your favor with brands pros trust. Our best lineup is here at Lowe's, valid through 422 while supplies last selection varies by location. You're making me think of two things. One, I'll do a quick drive by and then go to the main one. The quick one is when I was working in the counseling center at Western Washington University, there was a really great existing clubs website that they had and they had something like over 200 student led clubs of literally anything you could think of. And when we're doing therapy, individual or group therapy, we were also in a lot of instances sharing this with our clients who were students. And a new student, you know, a freshman or a sophomore in a new town is very similar to sort of the people on the subreddit you're talking about. Like I'm new to Philly, I don't know people, right? So that there's a very, there's a sort of a shared psychological experience there. And it was always clear to me from the beginning the immense value of all those clubs and that variety of clubs on ramps to belonging. I love that phrase, Brian. The meteor one that I'm thinking about is what's happened, what happened in Minneapolis with the ice surge and the signal chats and the sort of the community organization that had already occurred there, but that was sort of then brought back to the surface and grew and had to grow. And that's how I think I am in my mind connecting what we've been talking about with the anxious times theme. Right? So times in Minneapolis, St. Paul were fucking anxious. And for obvious reasons with you know, the Trump administration, ice enforcement and all that. And so that galvanized group activity along, you know, in this case, not like running groups, not sort of hobby focused shared interests, but something a bit more existential, something a bit more, you know, Kind of really brass tacks, lower parts of the Maslow hierarchy, you know, like really important shit. And that activates people's deepest values, which gives them energy to get over specifically the hurdles that you're talking about, Brian. Which is. Okay, people have a desire to get involved in something and. And this is one of the things I've been trying to communicate in this whole series is the flip side of the coin of anxious times being so shitty is that they tend to produce at least the possibility of real energy for actual change and to get off your ass and do something because it is so painful, because it is so worrisome that like you can turn that into grist for the mill in a number of different ways. So that it's got me thinking about Minneapolis and so kick it to either of you.

[A]

Well, I mean I. A number of things here. I mean Brian has. I'm sure you'll chime in. Cause you're quite well read about this. You know, there's the documentary I think we should talk about, which is Join or Die, which is talking about Robert Putnam. We've mentioned this name a couple times. I don't know.

[C]

Soccer. Sociologist.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Or see a social psychologist, whatever. He wrote a book called Bowling Alone. Yeah. About the decline of bowling leagues and religion and all of these sort of regular ritualistic groups across differences. Right. Your bowling league would not be all Democrats or all Republicans. And it used to be that your congregations would also not be all Democrats or all Republicans. And you do still find that. But there is increasing siloing because now for most Americans, religious practice is sort of downstream from socio political identity and culture stuff. But yeah, so that's the Robert Putnam stuff that was being referenced earlier.

[A]

Yeah. And so yeah, I mean some of these clubs are definitely hobby based and that's. I mean I think there's still so much merit there. And I would say in my own experience, like having done different activities, you know, maybe sometimes more officially, sometimes more organically like my girls and I that had art nightmare somewhat as a. Yeah. Less formal club if you will. It's not like you're just doing the art, you know, and that's where that in person connection I think has this potential to expand beyond that. But then of course the civic engagement and Brian, again, I'm curious to hear more about this too. And what's happening when we're talking about voting, when we're talking about groups. I mean one of the things I remember, Brian, you told me was in this kind of Gilded Age era where it was people coming together. Bars used to let people that did not have homes use their address so that they could sign up to vote or register to vote or do things that they needed an address to have. And it's sort of that neighborly. I know you've talked about neighborism recently, Dan. This neighborly approach, where it takes being in person, it takes knowing people and opening yourself up, that then results in, I think, civic activity. It's kind of one of the first steps. And one thing I think I mentioned before, too, I feel like I'm someone who. I mean, I've told you I got somewhat involved with things politically just before I was pregnant and I was in Rittenhouse Square getting signatures and raising awareness for a candidate. And that's something that. Well, that's a whole other identity thing, because at times it was embarrassing. My friend walks by and I'm like, oh, hi. Yeah, I'm doing this. But also, I thought it was important even doing that, even being involved at that level. I would say I still feel a deficit of knowledge in the political involvement sense. I'm like, oh, yeah, who are my representatives? What can I do in contacting them? And some people are very active, but I think the vast majority of people don't have the tools for that. And I think, again, it's in person connection that brings about this awareness. And I've even said that there's something about, like, the access, like, you could even say, like epistemic access that happens, being in touch with other people, that an algorithm, I think is less likely to serve you. Although it's. You know, there's things, obviously people learn online. But. Yeah. Brian, I'm sure you have much more that you know about the side of things with the civic engagement that you're doing now, too.

[B]

I don't know. I feel like you summed it up pretty well.

[A]

Wow. For not having been at the wheel recently. I'm glad you said you remind me

[B]

of that bar thing. I was trying to think recently. I know there's something cool about bars. I can't remember because there used to be so many more bars, and that was the tidbit, so I'm glad you reminded me.

[C]

Well, it made me think of in the last few years, might have been during COVID I read the Truman Capote novel, Breakfast at Tiffany's. The Audrey Hepburn film is based on the novel. And one of the characters in that novel, like, part of the plot is, like, going downstairs from the apartment to the bar or the bar across the street where, like, he Would basically take his phone calls. Like, it was like, that was the way. I don't remember which character it was. Been a few years since I read it. But there's a character who's constantly taking phone calls at the bar and that's similar, right. So, like, you can receive your mail here. It's an address you can have. And I think that the connection that comes up for me around that is about technology. So the more and more sophisticated technology that I can have for lower cost on my person, basically, the more that my phone can do or maybe my computer at home can do, the less I'm relying on sort of communal resources. Right. It's all individualized. It's all atomized. And so if, for instance. Yeah. To like, receive phone calls, I had to go across the street to a restaurant where I know the people who work there and a few of my neighbors are regularly there. We don't think about it that way. It is certainly inconvenient to have to do something like that. But what do I get in exchange for that inconvenience? Five or six regular, ongoing connections with people who, you know, even if I don't feel close to them, they could tell if I'm having some sort of something wrong with me medically. Maybe they. There's like all kinds of ways that then my life is connected with them and I'm probably just going to feel less lonely in general, all other things being equal for being forced into these communal situations. And really, phones are not the only sort of culprit there. But I think they're the clearest way of seeing what has changed. Think about all the shit you can do while you're sitting at a restaurant with your friends, ignoring them by using your phone to do anything. Anything you want, you know, research whatever is in the Encyclopedia Britannica book a hotel, talk to somebody else. You know, distract yourself with Candy Crush. Anyway.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I. Dan, I like. And Brian, you're probably seeing this too. There's a lot of discourse, I'd say, surrounding this, like the commodification of things that used to be what friends did or family did. And, you know, drive your. Yeah. Drive your friend to the airport or, you know, pick your friend up some groceries when they're sick. Well, now you can just doordash or Uber and all these sorts of things. But I do. I do think. And Brian, I mean, I'd love to hear if, you know, if. Do you think there's more to kind of mine in this regard? But this identity thing and Also like there's almost, I would say like an embarrassment or a discomfort that people have of needing to ask, almost needing to be vulnerable. And I think. And you say even the inconvenience, like there's that. And this is one of the phrases kind of going around like inconvenience or annoyance is sometimes the price of friendship. Like we can't live in a world where we're just not going to be annoyed with our friends or people we love. Like there's going to be times that they bother us and there's going to be times that they're inconvenient. And I think a way to see that is it's a feature, not a bug. Like it's a part of living life with people. But I think we're kind of told, you know, there was the message, I feel like especially five, ten years ago, no new friends, you know, like just like you do you, I think very much individualism at its core. So Brian, I don't know if that's touching on some of the identity stuff you're doing now, but I, I feel like it kind of has to be reframed to accept those things to be part of a community as well.

[B]

Yeah, it's, it's, it's tough because I think about this a lot and I'm like how much are we pushing against human nature? And is everyone raw? Like how, like it's like it's tough for the kids. But then now all of our, every senior citizen, whatever, all our parents, they're on their phones at the table all the time.

[C]

So like there's the phone based retirement. Those articles are popping up. Yeah.

[B]

And then there's the. I'm also like an anomaly. Like I'm not a scroller. Like I just did. My head doesn't go there. Like I don't, I'm like I don't care about this but I'm, I'm on my phone, I'm totally cool with it because I'm like old enough where I'm talking with our, our friend Kristen who's doing Mark who's doing screen free Philly and they have a table at the fair and they're holding about these screen free events. I'm like, I'm all for it because you guys need it. Like I'm good. Like I'll keep my phone. But also what you were saying, Dan. I was like, man, sometimes it's nice you're sitting at a table with your friends and you could, I was like, I could do anything else. I want like sometimes I want to because these people are boring. So, like we have all these. So maybe people should be more exciting and, and more engaging. I talk about events a lot, like all the no phone events. And I was like, I appreciate it. I was like, maybe just make your event better. I mean, it's like an arrogant thing to say, but it's like, maybe we need to have better experiences and have more things to do. So. That's not what you asked.

[C]

Can I. Well, can. Can we talk a little about the human nature and sort of psychological limits thing there? Because I do think that's a really interesting question. So sorry to cut you off, but no, please. I would say human nature is unchanged, but the technology changes. Sort of how any company or product or individual can sort of access that, that human psychological nature. So it's like, yes, you could say, well, we got to make our events more interesting now because competition is more fierce with the stuff that people have in their phones. And I think there's a part of the situation where that is the best way to think about it. But it's also like, if you said, okay, we're gonna do a lecture here, and in the first time, the first time we do it, everyone's just sitting in chairs, you know, comfortable chairs. And then the second time they're gonna be hooked up to a morphine IV drip and they can just hit a button anytime they want to get a little more juice. Now, it's not morphine, it's dopamine and whatever else it is. But it's like you would, you could say, well, you should make, you know, maybe you gotta make the second one more interesting. But like, there's also gon be effect from people being able to be on a dopamine or morphine drip, like at will. So there are limits to what you can do. And I think we're seeing this, like the most, like, really, really recent example of this I've noticed is a lot of movies that are coming out, especially on streamers or television shows, like the first episode of a show or the beginning of a movie, like in the first 90 seconds. A lot of these filmmakers, my guess is they are being asked to sort of bake in a trailer into. It's not. They don't want it to say the rest of this season on whatever. It's actually, they want it to be like someone's having like a flash forward or a flashback and it's an excuse to show a bunch of scenes from the thing. And I, I could almost, I would bet so much money. That's because the executives in this room know the data from their tech people. And the data is if people can get a sense of what's coming and they can get all those that dopamine hit of like, here's what's coming, they will not look away and they will stick around longer. And we have better viewer retention numbers. And so we're going to encourage you to put that in the beginning of your piece of art, whether or not it makes the movie better. And there could be artful and less artful ways of doing that, but you can see the shows and movies are being warped to match the reality of what people are used to in terms of their attention spans and double screening and all that kind of a thing. So it's both.

[B]

It's like, can I ask you about that point? So what you're saying as like the studio's adapting because they need to adapt because that's how they're making money on those.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I always think about this like, we will as a species, we will adapt or we're just going to totally die. Or we'll die sooner than that because Trump's going to do something. But will we, like, hashtag the phones are flight. Like, I got a 14 year old. Like, he's fucked up. They all have anxiety. Like, I'm sure it's who you work. Like, people have more anxiety that allegedly they did not have those diagnoses number years ago. Yeah. So we will adapt. And I'm sure kids, I know, like teenagers will say, like, you know, they know they have issues, they enjoy them. Like, they're like, like these. My kid's like showing off his diagnosis with his friends and that's horrible. Like they'll compete. Like, oh, I have more problems than you have. But he's got a lot of issues.

[A]

Does he have ms, though? I mean, not yet.

[B]

Not yet.

[A]

Oh, my gosh.

[B]

So I guess my question is, while leading technology leads in these movies to his leads and I was like, porn always leads in technology. It's the leading indicators of adapting. My whole thing is instead of fighting in terms of fighting this human nature, whether it's fabricated or not, or as a result of this increase of this dopamine hits we have, I just like in this space, just to join Philly kind of stuff of the screen free things. And a lot of younger. I'm 46, all the younger kids are trying to do these things to combat what we're not supposed to do. And there's all. I keep bitching about all these apps just come across every day. Like, you see my new app for social connection and we're going to make this new app to. You can get to ask your neighbor to borrow four eggs. Like, just fucking ask your neighbor. So, like, we're always a technology and my whole thing is I'm totally over everyone doing connection right now in the Zeitgeist. I'm like, we just connect and I telling the people, like in this space I'm in what's going to happen in a few years when the trend's over and all the people that made their apps stop because there's no money in it and like, we're on as a, you know, as in the Zeitgeist onto something else. But we're still humans that still have these human needs to belong. That's what I'm building Joint Philly for. Like, how do you sustain this in terms of what's needed for the next hundred years?

[A]

You can listen to the rest of

[B]

this episode by joining the [e-mail] Dan Coke.