When the soul can’t find meaning, it creates one — and that’s how communities are born.
Every few generations, humanity faces a collective question: What is all this about, anyway?
That question marks the beginning of an existential crisis — not of despair, but of re-creation.
An existential crisis is, at its core, a search for meaning.
It begins with the question: What is all this—reality—about, anyway?
In the search for meaning, the psyche questions everything one thought was right, and turns every table inside the house of one’s being. It is like you’ve lost something at home and are now pushing the furniture away, opening every drawer in an effort to find something precious that has been lost. That lost treasure is meaning itself.
- What has meaning for me?
- What’s meaningful in my life?
- What purpose do I serve—and for whom?
Every human psyche undergoes this season at least once. It is not a failure of life, but a necessary process of growth. Meaning gives color to existence; it makes the act of living an experience worth living for. Yet meaning is uniquely different to each being.
When enough individuals share resonant values, something larger begins to take shape—a collective force.
Shared meaning becomes a movement:
a band of people claiming rights,
a gathering, a club, a group of founders,
a society.
A subculture is born when a creative cultural force erupts from a group of people that differentiates itself from mainstream because they share the same values, and care enough to create something new that gives them meaning. It arises in the name of belonging—a word increasingly present in the human vocabulary today. In other words, when souls can’t find meaning in the structures they inherited, the brave among them create a new scene, a new thing, a new reality. The creative soul carves meaning out of the void. This is the beauty of our humanity.
We are now living through such a time. Our epoch compels us to question our fundamental beliefs, and once we do, nothing returns to what it was.
As the psyche turns its inner house upside down to rediscover meaning, everything gets messy. Dust fills the air. Old arrangements fall apart, but eventually the house is cleaned, reshaped, and reoriented with new found values that give meaning to one’s life again.
Because we are social beings held in place by social norms and norms are being reinvented at the moment, the systems that holds meaning to our lives during these transient times will be mostly found in communities, a group of like minded people that can give the soul a sense of belonging amidst the chaos and hold meaning when all is fading.
That’s why the rise of communities is the defining reality of our time.
Effective marketing in the era of AI is no longer about broadcasting a message; it’s about cultivating meaning within a shared field. Promotion alone won’t sustain interest. Engagement happens when people feel like participants in a living story—when they have a role that matters and make them feel valued for contributing. Time spent together generates affection; affection generates loyalty.
So, community evangelism becomes a key skill for the new era of creators and brands. Strong communities give rise to ecosystems, which is the next frontier of brand identity. Within an ecosystem, multiple user profiles with diverse needs are interwoven into one living network of data, design, and platforms. This interconnection builds both value and devotion.
In short:
We are living through a reorientation of values.
We are questioning what makes our life meaningful.
In that quest, we are gathering into communities that reflect our truths and reshape the way we live, relate, and exchange.
The business of the future is not merely a service—it is a community that serves meaning.