There is something magical about finding people from all walks of life and coming together to celebrate music, love, and life. Exposing your mind to all the cultures of what America really is. Our tribe had East LA biker gang members, surfers, gay, straight, bicurious, marines, aliens, bros, hoes, nurses, artists, white, black, brown, yellow, and sometimes green for the ones that drank too much. A rich and culturally diverse melting pot of ideas, food, style, and faiths. There is a universal acceptance of all flaws which the tribe turns into your most admirable quirks. In my twenty-somethings, I discovered and felt a completely new form of love that was not romantic or familial. It was the love for a stranger, a feeling of tenderness toward everyone around you. Not jaded by the inner demons of our lives and past. It was a feeling I never knew I needed. It is the nourishment for the soul. It brought out the best in everyone and it was so infectious that it grew and grew until the wave of that energy eventually had to return to baseline. I understood that it wouldn’t last forever because this is the natural cycle of things. Forces go up and down, expand and condense, push and pull, always looking for that equilibrium. Almost a decade later, I find myself on trying to catch a new vibration and looking for a new tribe. Taking into account my past experiences, I wanted to revisit a part of my life that I consider precious. My rite of passage as a young person and going through the modern hippie phase that seems to be an experience shared by some of my favorite authors like Paulo Coelho. It was a mosh pit of experimentation, moral and ethical lessons, and development of the sixth sense. I wanted to distill the lessons I’ve learned that may prove useful in finding my next tribe for a different chapter in my life and hope it may be useful to you in some way as well. Here are a few steps in the pattern I recognized when attracting your tribe.
Get Really Good at Something
I belonged to a unique subculture in the rave community called “kandikids”. Kandi is the term for bracelets or necklaces made of beads that you’re supposed to make yourself and then trade them with people at the rave. You perform a ritual using hand gestures representing: peace, love, unity, and respect. You will then trade or give kandi to someone with your hands interlocked as an expression of good will, positive vibration, and universal love. Most kandi people have at raves are called singles, a single string of beads about 28-36 pony beads in length. I was so drawn to the creativity people put into their kandi that I wanted to make some as well. After tapping into my muse and committing the time and effort, I made all the pieces in the photos above. Nothing gave me more pride than when people came up just to compliment my creativity and eye for beauty. Other kandikids would come and offer to trade their most treasured pieces for one of mine. Like bartering, we have to agree that the time and effort put into the piece were of equal value and that we shared an equal desire for each other’s piece. You want to be nice but these pieces represented 4-12 hours of my time, energy, and creativity. If I was going to give it away, I wanted it to mean something and be special. During this process, I would find a person to focus on and give them my all. I realized that when it comes to myself, I am the epitome of lazy. But for someone else, I seem to go above and beyond. This is an important distinction for motivating myself moving forward. In the same fashion, I’m looking to attract a tribe of people that share the same values and interests by improving my writing and this blog to reach a wider audience. This is a good segway into the next step.
Share Your Work
This is the part where you document the process. I started making singles and then finding more creative ways to string beads together. I searched for videos on various stringing techniques and how to incorporate other pieces or jewelry. I would ask the older ladies at the local hobby stores about their suggestions on beads. They were pleasantly surprised that a young man would be asking them these questions. They even offered me their coupons and letting me in on all the sales. I began experimenting by using alternative types of beads that you can melt together and form into custom shapes using heat. As I was learning, I posted these on social media like Instagram and started following pages about kandi. I used their hashtags and they would start featuring my pieces on their pages. People would see it and begin following me. This is how I started leveraging the social network to meet with people at the events themselves. It became a primary means of communication when you want that layer of privacy from your personal phone number etc. The convenient block feature always keeps the creeps away. Strangers would come up to me at various events and call me by my IG handle. It was definitely a time in my life where I really stopped caring what people thought of me and devoted myself to being truly and authentically free. However, I felt as if I was living a double life between this world, my work, and my family. I created this alternate persona which people have come to know me by. I’m starting a new chapter with writing and developing a habit of posting every Monday and Thursday at 11am no matter what. I know for a fact that something will happen if I stick to it. I can’t see it now, but I have complete faith in the process. It’s just a matter of putting in the work, time and energy. When you’re all burnt out though, you need a vent to let it all out.
Throw a Party
Everyone loves a good party. Especially when you can bring together the elements where people can really unwind. You can show up and not be the craziest one there. It’s why I enjoy music festivals, by having all these people being their extreme selves, it puts everyone else at ease about their own insecurities. Whether overweight, gay, have a disability, it doesn’t matter. People are accepted and are celebrated. The key here is once you use the social network to find some people who share your interests and hobbies, you have to meet them up IRL. Music festivals are easy to center my subculture around because it’s a date and time where we can all meet up and dance. If you’re pursuing a different tribe, you have to go to the events. Whether it’s a conference or seminar, cocktail party, backyard BBQ, or wherever. We had people in the group that would organize “kandi picnics or parties” at a local park or house where we fight for control of the music and make kandi pieces leading up to an event. As I slowly retired from making kandi, I became a sort of mentor or advisor for people that are new to making kandi and would even help with their outfit choices. It’s kind of crazy because you’re literally inviting a bunch of strangers to your house who have never met each other before. So you get a lot of “strange” but that’s part of what makes life interesting. So get put yourself out there, stop giving a shit what people think and you will find your tribe.