On Belief, Not Reach

Culture & Identity

14 dec

There is something quietly compelling about the way people gather around certain brands.

Not because the product is better. Not always because the messaging is clearer. But because being close to it feels like belonging to something that says more about who you are than what you buy. I’ve been thinking about how similar that feels to religion. Or to cults, if we strip that word of its moral charge and look at it purely psychologically.

Both offer a shared belief system. A story about how the world works. A language that helps you recognize others who see it the same way. With symbols, rituals, sometimes even a sense of moral order.

That comparison makes people uncomfortable. And I get why. We are taught to be suspicious of anything that asks for belief instead of proof. But I don’t think the similarity is accidental. I think it points to something very human. We don’t just want options. We want orientation.

Most of us are not walking around asking what to buy. We’re asking quieter questions. Where do I belong. What do I align with. What does it say about me that I choose this and not that. Religions and cults answer those questions directly. They say this is how we see the world. This is what we value. This is who we are in relation to others.

Strong brands do something similar, even when they pretend not to.

The difference is not structure. It’s honesty. From what I’ve seen, the brands people truly follow are not the ones that try to be universally acceptable. They’re the ones that take a stance early, often before it makes sense. Sometimes before it’s socially rewarded. At the moment they appear, their beliefs often look strange. Too specific or sometimes even unnecessary.

Until suddenly they’re not.

Belief always looks irrational before it looks obvious.

There’s also a responsibility in that. Because belief cuts both ways. It creates belonging, but it also creates exclusion. And that’s usually where brands hesitate. They want the warmth of being followed without the discomfort of being chosen against.

But you can’t have one without the other.

Religions never tried to be for everyone. Cults definitely don’t. Not because they understand, strategically, that clarity creates devotion. But because from the inside, there is no alternative. The belief is not a tactic. It’s the only way the world makes sense to them. That’s the difference.

Clarity, in those systems, isn’t chosen because it works. It exists because anything else would feel false. Dilution would mean betrayal. Softening the edges would mean losing the truth as they experience it. Vagueness doesn’t just weaken devotion. It signals doubt. And doubt breaks the spell, not because people are naïve, but because they can feel when something isn’t fully inhabited.

Attendance happens when something is open enough to be harmless. Allegiance happens when someone believes so deeply that they’re willing to risk being misunderstood.

That kind of belief can’t be engineered. It can only be lived.

For me, it comes down to this. I don’t believe we become stronger by becoming someone else. I think we’re at our best when we stop trying to translate ourselves into something more acceptable, more familiar, more legible. That belief shapes how I work and who I’m willing to work with. I’m not devoted to helping people reinvent themselves. I’m devoted to helping them stay with who they already are, long enough for that to become coherent, and visible, and real.