How to Be a Better Human

How to find belonging (w/ Hanif Abdurraqib)

November 17, 2025

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  • The act of caring for others, even in small ways like sharing shelter or time, fosters a sense of connection and responsibility that grounds an individual, as illustrated by Hanif Abdurraqib's experience with a neighbor during a power outage. 
  • Community is defined by people who know you with a depth of curiosity and care, which can manifest in geographic locations (like Columbus, Ohio) or shared interests (like music or art), where mutual knowledge allows for meaningful connection and sharing. 
  • Staying in one's hometown, despite frustrations with the city's direction, can be a deliberate act of resistance against gentrification and the dismantling of history, preserving a material and internal archive of place. 

Segments

Podcast Introduction and Guest Context
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(00:00:00)
  • Key Takeaway: The episode of How to Be a Better Human focuses on belonging, community, and the influence of one’s place of origin, featuring poet Hanif Abdurraqib.
  • Summary: The episode centers on questions of belonging, community roots, and mutual care within a place. Guest Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet and cultural critic known for works like ‘They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us.’ The conversation was recorded in person in Hanif’s hometown of Columbus, Ohio, at Spoonful Records.
Poem Reading and Setting Tone
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(00:01:47)
  • Key Takeaway: Hanif Abdurraqib read the poem ‘It is Once Again the Summer of My Discontent’ from his book ‘A Fortune for Your Disaster,’ illustrating themes of shared experience and desire.
  • Summary: The reading featured lines about shared discontent, community gatherings being broken up, and the intimacy found in shared human experiences like desire and eventual loss. The poem connects personal feeling to broader communal moments from the past.
Columbus Love and Community Care
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(00:08:29)
  • Key Takeaway: Hanif Abdurraqib’s love for Columbus stems from the responsibility and familiarity felt when neighbors actively care for each other during crises, such as a neighborhood power outage.
  • Summary: When power went out, neighbors spontaneously gathered at a local gazebo to assess immediate needs, demonstrating an unspoken commitment to collective well-being. This local responsibility contrasts with the anonymity often found in larger cities like New York City, where Hanif grew up.
Familiarity vs. Public Awe
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(00:10:50)
  • Key Takeaway: Interactions with neighbors in Columbus are characterized by comfortable familiarity, lacking the hierarchical deference often present when interacting with the public as a recognized author.
  • Summary: On book tour, exchanges involve gratitude for work given, but in Columbus, people engage Hanif about albums or the NBA finals without assuming a professional hierarchy. This comfort arises because locals know him as a neighbor whose primary engine is connection.
Neighborly Acts and Shared Identity
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(00:12:24)
  • Key Takeaway: Small, unspoken acts of neighborly service, like shoveling a neighbor’s sidewalk without discussion, reinforce a connection that counters isolating individualism.
  • Summary: Observing neighbors’ gardens or their dedication to specific holidays, like Halloween decorations, reveals their personalities and affirms that the speaker lives among interesting individuals whose personalities he wants to engage with. This interaction presses his personality against theirs to create something meaningful.
Artistic Community and Career Foundation
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(00:14:44)
  • Key Takeaway: The community of art, music, and shared taste acts as a vital network where trusted individuals introduce new cultural elements, directly influencing career trajectory.
  • Summary: Trusting the taste of a record shop employee like Elijah led Hanif to discover new music, an experience isolating when done alone in unfamiliar cities. Furthermore, his first book deal resulted from a connection made through a friend, Brett, who was in a band Hanif supported.
Moral Challenge of Community Care
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(00:17:52)
  • Key Takeaway: The central moral question of our time involves defining who is included in one’s community and who is deemed worthy of care, balancing the need to expand care with the reality that effort limits who can be fully supported.
  • Summary: Care requires effort, time, and knowledge, making it impossible to care for everyone equally. Hanif recalls a church maintenance worker who unlocked the doors early to provide safe sleep for unhoused people, illustrating that care often involves sharing a key to safety, even if it is a small gesture.
Valuing All Concerns Equally
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(00:20:00)
  • Key Takeaway: When offering care, the depth of self-sacrifice matters more than the perceived severity of the recipient’s crisis, requiring one to take a 17-year-old’s concert access issue as seriously as an elder’s health concerns.
  • Summary: Hanif runs a writing workshop for high schoolers and demands he take their crises as seriously as those of older community members facing time constraints. The measure of care is not the concern’s weight, but the amount of self given to provide a safe, comfortable space for recharging.
Surrendering Time to Love Better
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(00:21:43)
  • Key Takeaway: A key miracle of Hanif’s upbringing was his father’s commitment to surrendering his time to attend every event for his children, demonstrating that love is expressed through the intentional surrender of one’s limited time.
  • Summary: Despite resource scarcity, Hanif’s father never missed a sporting event or play for him and his brother after their mother passed. Understanding that one’s time is not solely one’s own motivates making the most of the moments when it is available, aiming to love others better.
Staying vs. Leaving Hometowns
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(00:28:29)
  • Key Takeaway: The relationship with one’s place of origin is inherently contentious because it is imposed, leading many to seek exit when autonomy is gained, while others stay to archive history against material deconstruction.
  • Summary: Moving away allows one to learn new ’languages’ of affection, such as the farm work ethic shared by a college teammate, which might otherwise feel like pure labor. Staying in Columbus, for Hanif, is an effort to build an archive of history that developers seek to deconstruct through gentrification.
The Power of Place-Based Art
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(00:35:51)
  • Key Takeaway: Visual artist Amina Robinson countered the disposable narrative applied to East Columbus neighborhoods by creating majestic art from found materials, teaching that neither objects nor people should be thrown away.
  • Summary: Robinson used trash like milk cartons to create renderings of the neighborhood, transforming disposable items into majestic representations of the community. This ethos of not discarding things or people underpins Hanif’s decision to remain in a city whose leadership often displeases him.
Episode Conclusion and Credits
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(00:38:02)
  • Key Takeaway: Listeners are encouraged to view the video companion on the TED YouTube channel to see the places discussed in the conversation with Hanif Abdurraqib.
  • Summary: Hanif Abdurraqib’s most recent book mentioned is ‘There’s Always This Year,’ and his work can be found at abdurraqib.com. The episode production team, including Daniela Balarazzo and Morgan Flannery, is credited for their work on the podcast.