You know what I mean, right? We all have one. Your Tribe, your people, your homies. It’s the scattered collection of human beings who love the same things you love, laugh at the same jokes as you, vote for the same liars, or vape the same e-cigarettes you vape. They might read the same books, go to the same superhero conventions, or stalk the same food trucks where you like to eat. Which might actually mean they’re stalking you¸ but that still proves they’re in your Tribe.
I’m intrigued by the idea of finding my Tribe. From everything I hear on podcasts and read in books, all of us need one. They’re the people who “get you.” They’re your cheerleaders, your comforters, accountability partners, and your community. When you’re around them, you feel included. You belong. If you don’t show up, they make it their business to find out why and help you come back to your Tribe. It sounds so . . . claustrophobic.
Okay, here’s the truth. The real reason I’m on the hunt for my Tribe is because I’m a writer, and a writer needs readers. Lots and lots of them—just not all in the same room at the same time. I’m also an introvert which makes membership in a Tribe a little tricky for me. I like you, but I need my space. I need close friends, but not all at once. I’m a good listener, but please take a number. Exhausting, contradictory stuff like that.
It’s not important to me, as a writer, that the members of my potential Tribe reside in the same zip code. Or county. Or even the same country. They could all be scattered across the worldwide web—that works—and read my blog posts or my nearly finished but yet unpublished novels from the privacy of their own homes and then leave comments in cyberspace about what I’ve written and why they sit with baited breath each and every day hoping for one more published article from me, their introverted, invisible, but wildly talented egocentric Tribe member. That’s the same thing as community, right?
So far no one has responded to my offer for membership in a Tribe like that.
So, I’ve been researching how to be a better Tribe-ist. Here’s what I learned.
1.
Your vibe attracts your Tribe.
That means that if you are yourself, you will attract others who are like you,
no one has to pretend and feel uncomfortable by being in the wrong Tribe, and
everybody wins. The obvious problem here for me is the members of my Tribe are
probably all introverts who don’t want to be found.
2.
You must engage with your Tribe.
Here’s what that means to me. I write a book. They read it. Nobody has to
attend conventions or wear funny badges or drink bad coffee. Low expectations will
be the hallmark of my Tribe. Introverts unite, separately.
3.
Always be positive – the health of
your Tribe depends upon it. That kind of defeats the purpose of
having a blog site to throw up on, though. It makes me feel like I can’t be
myself. That nobody will accept me for who I really am. If all of that
is true, the only way I can be a part of the introvert Tribe I’m searching for
is if I’m an extrovert. If you ask me, that little piece of advice isn’t
positive at all.
You can see why I’m having such a difficult time with this. That and the fact that my writing hobby is relatively unknown. That’s why I need a Tribe. To bolster my flagging spirits, tell me how much my writing has changed their life, to buy my books and support the lifestyle to which I’d like to become accustomed.
It’s time I faced the facts. You can’t have a Tribe if you’re an introvert. With ulterior motives. And average writing talent. Not only that, you can’t have a Tribe if you’re not Native American. It turns out my great-grandmother wasn’t even a full-blooded Creek Indian. Or a half-blooded one, though she did have the normal nine or ten pints we each have. When I sent in my spit test to Ancestry.com, they wrote back and said there is no evidence anywhere that my freckle-faced, red-headed DNA contains a single drop of Native American blood. I’m not even a blood relative of my blood relatives.
The only hope I have left is that if you made it this far, you recognize sarcasm as my native tongue, that sometimes it physically hurts me to hold in sarcastic comments, and I have sarcasm moments that are so advanced people actually think I’m stupid.
I may have to give up on searching for my Tribe and just be content to be an unknown blogger, wannabee novelist, lover of sarcasm, and collector of memes. There’s no shame in whiling away the hours online laughing at other people’s humor, reading their copycat recipes for food truck fare, and collecting political pundits to pin on my cyber boards. Even if I did borrow some funny phrases here, it’s worth including them in case they help me locate my missing community of introverts.
Ohmigosh. I did it. I think I just found my Tribe. “Pinterest.” Social media at its most social.
I might be an extrovert after all.
With thanks to Steven Miller for the fun photo included above. The original picture can be viewed on his webpage by following the link below.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/aloha75/14586957695/in/photolist-odZYjB-2hQ1d9S-7kgLz4-as5KAo-WCQCDv-H288A-6ywoNb-NFRsVG-is9MLA-qp5dtR-8w5rQN-6MX1zv-62TA2s-vzMWw5-2ecrBsv-BjUr9v-8nQWub-34stk-jwfDf-8w2r1x-nh52DP-NmgXcH-Uand99-4kf3Vd-6Rr4AE-8w5rKW-is9vUg-8w2oE8-62Pkuz-kgHfzS-jwfXq-UkaEdb-yHMAzp-dMXhcc-hBHaEW-6aXsgz-jwfV4-9UwSiu-pAkc7c-jwfmw-62TAaA-62PjBD-8w5rdA-29r8pKP-8QUg7K-2dqjKz6-62PkXa-62TAis-isapKt-NT8Qxh
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