The Art of Sitting Together

When I first started volunteering at a senior citizen assisted-living community in Oakland nearly a year ago, I thought connection came from conversation, that if I wanted to get to know someone, I needed to ask good questions, keep the discussion going, and always have something to say. After almost a year of volunteering, I've realized that's not really true.

A few weeks ago, I participated in a laughing yoga class with some of the residents, and if you've never heard of laughing yoga, it's exactly what it sounds like: everyone sits in a circle and intentionally starts laughing. It feels completely ridiculous for about thirty seconds, and then people start genuinely laughing because the situation itself is so funny.

The goal wasn't really exercise, and it wasn't even conversation, the point was simply doing something together.

Anthropologists have a word for what was actually happening in that circle. Victor Turner called it "communitas", the bond that forms when people go through the same experience together, stripped of the usual roles and hierarchies that normally separate them. In that room, nobody was a volunteer or a resident, a teenager or an eighty-year-old, we were just people laughing at the same absurd thing at the same time, and that shared absurdity did more for the room than any conversation could have.

I've noticed the same thing in other moments at the retirement center. One resident I spend time with only speaks Korean, and we can't really have a conversation beyond a few gestures and smiles, however one afternoon we sat together and watched a K-drama. I couldn't understand what was happening, but she occasionally laughed or reacted to something on the screen, and I'd look over and laugh too, even though I was missing most of the context. By most standards, we weren't communicating very much, yet I still left feeling connected.

There's a term for that too. The anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski called it "phatic communion", communication whose purpose isn't to exchange information at all, but simply to confirm that two people are present with each other. A nod, a shared laugh, a glance during a funny scene, none of it carries real content, and yet it's doing the actual work of the relationship, which is telling each other, without words, I see you, I'm here too.

That's what I've started noticing about human relationships, since we often assume that connection comes from exchanging information, that we need the perfect conversation, the perfect question, or some deep discussion to create a bond. But sometimes connection comes from sharing an experience instead.

Anthropologists often study rituals and social practices, and what's interesting is that many of them aren't centered on conversation at all, they're centered on participation. People gather around meals, ceremonies, games, celebrations, and traditions, and the activity creates a sense of belonging.

The laughing yoga class worked that way, so did watching television together, and so did something as simple as sitting next to the same person every week. The activity gives people a reason to be together, however eventually the activity becomes secondary, what matters is the shared time.

This matters more than it might seem, especially at a retirement center. Loneliness isn't just an unpleasant feeling for older adults, researchers have found that chronic social isolation carries health risks on par with smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, raising the risk of depression, cognitive decline, and even early death. What's striking is that the research doesn't say people need deep, meaningful conversation to be protected from that, it says they need consistent, low-pressure contact with other people. Sitting in a circle laughing, watching a show together, being remembered week after week, these aren't small gestures, they're closer to medicine.

As a teenager, I'm used to communication being fast and constant, texts, FaceTimes, group chats, notifications, and endless conversation filling most of my day, however volunteering has taught me that relationships can also be built much more quietly.

Sometimes someone saves you a seat. Sometimes someone remembers your name. Sometimes you watch a television show in a language you don't understand. Sometimes you sit in a circle laughing with people you've known for only a few months.

None of those moments seem particularly important on their own, but together they create something meaningful.

That's why I think of volunteering less as helping and more as participating in a community, since the real value isn't always in what gets said, it's in showing up, being present, and sharing time with other people. Sometimes sitting together is the whole thing.