Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger
I read this book in that quiet moment when summer begins to turn into fall — when everything feels like both an ending and a beginning. Tribe met me there, in that tender in-between. Sebastian Junger weaves stories of soldiers, disaster survivors, and traditional societies to explore a truth that feels deeply human: our well-being depends on connection. As I turned the pages, I kept thinking about how much our culture prizes independence, while our nervous systems quietly ache for community. That tension — between wanting to stand alone and needing to belong — felt almost physical.
As I moved through the book, I found myself reflecting on the quiet kind of loneliness that lives underneath so many busy, high-functioning lives. Junger describes people who, even after returning to comfort and safety, feel an emptiness they can’t quite name. It isn’t a longing for chaos — it’s a longing for closeness, for shared purpose, for being needed. In my work, I often see how disconnection can quietly wear down a person’s sense of self. We can be surrounded by people and still feel unseen — disconnected not just from others, but from the deeper pulse of belonging that steadies us.
What stayed with me most wasn’t Junger’s writing about war or hardship, but his reminder that belonging isn’t a given — it’s something we have to tend to. It grows in the small, consistent gestures: showing up, listening, telling the truth. Tribe reminded me that healing often begins with the courage to need others and to let ourselves be needed in return. It’s a gentle, humbling kind of homecoming — one that invites us to remember that we were never meant to do life alone.