Tribe? Such a cliché. What tribe, why tribe, how tribe?
An overused yet powerful concept
“I hear the word ‘tribe’ being tossed about a lot. Self-development facilitators invite us to “come to such-and-such a workshop, be part of the tribe”; festival organisers promote their events as ‘tribal gatherings’ or ‘gatherings of the tribe’; trendy clothes designers advertise their trousers and T-shirts as ‘tribal chic’, and so on. For me, this is a trivialisation of the term. For me, to become a conscious tribe – a non-biological extended family – implies an enormous letting-go of one’s familiar, comfortable isolation. […] It implies giving ourselves to each other. That implies surrender and love as our guiding star. […] You probably have your individual existential practices, and endeavor to live as ecologically as you can. Here I’m talking about the next step. I’m talking about the spoken existential, psycho-emotional vision/direction/purpose, and practical, organisational agreements that could turn your group of friends into a deeply united, heart-woven, powerfully purposeful force for personal and collective transformation.”
— Mark Josephs (Tribus Conscientes: Love & Revolution)
What tribe?
A tribe in the deeper sense of the word, meaning a close-knit group of people, intentionally sharing life in the physical realm, supporting and empowering each other, is a concept that seems long forgotten in our era—at least in the practical sense and in the existence of the common man, as it’s a different story at the elite level.
Originally, this concept was the same as an extended family or cluster of extended families. Not the extended families we know today, but families who would stick together, living in the same location, and caring for each other’s survival and well-being, first in the hunter-gatherer type of way, then agriculture, then through family businesses and the like.
Modern man has turned away from these strong family ties, and cares mostly about his own survival and well-being, and that of his children up to their homogenized age of ‘adulthood’. He’s usually serving the nation-state in one way or the other, as replacement of the biological family, in order to sustain his individualistic life.
So we are talking about a gradual shift from interdependence to (illusionary) independence. Why illusionary? Because we’ve always stayed interdependent, often without being aware of it. The bus, train or car you drive in is made by other people operating machines. The food you eat has a whole chain of people in between the source and your plate. The clothes you wear are made by others, often far away. The knowledge and beliefs you carry are transmitted by other people. And the list goes on endlessly. We’re more dependent on others than ever.
Why tribe?
Okay, so now we can deny this realization or accept that our perceived independence is actually false and embrace our interdependence, comprehending it’s the most natural phenomenon ever: we all possess different skillsets and are not born with the goal of knowing how to do everything by ourselves... Cooperation is one of our biggest assets. Not just ours; look at ant colonies, look at beehives, look at bird flocks, look at everything in this universe: all operating from synergy, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Oh and don’t forget about babies! It takes a village to raise a child, right? It’s not just a saying, it’s the truth.
Okay, for me this is clear, so what now? Well, I would like to know the people who are valuable to my survival and well-being personally! And I would like to be known to the people I am valuable for. I would even like to share my life with them!
I’d like to be friends and share life with the guy who is handy and can make our bags and furniture from natural materials. I’d like to be friends and share life with the gal who’s baking our daily sourdough bread and an occasional lemon cake. I’d like to be friends and share life with the nurturing type, who knows everything about natural herbs, medicinal mushrooms and healing. I’d like to be friends and share life with the eccentric type who looks at the stars and knows why everyone is feeling tense or emotional at this particular moment. I’d like to be friends and share life with the people who love to get their hands dirty and naturally take care of the growth of our greens. I’d like to be friends and share life with the people who love to build stuff and construct our shelters in all shapes and forms. I’d like to be friends and share life with the entrepreneurial type, having a multitude of awesome business ideas and the energy to spark everyone’s enthusiasm. I’d like to be friends and share life with the patient one, spontaneously mediating conflicts and balancing emotional dynamics in the group. I’d like to be friends and share life with the wise one, knowing how to read signs, perceive synchronicities and uncover subtle patterns.
I can go on for some time.
Okay, so now what? I know my biological family personally. They love me, I love them. They have many skills. So they could take on all those roles, and turn into a tribe again, right? Well yes, they could in theory. But I cannot force them to, and they do not seem to have the same desire of being dependent on each other specifically, sustaining each other and going through life together. They seem to be okay with having their individual carreers running; being dependent on people they’ve never seen or spoken to; paying taxes to the state for all the facilities they didn’t ask for; seeing their friends every now and then to have a chat with over a beer or do sports together; relying fully on their partner for intimacy and connection in the moments they’re both not working or occupied with the million things in their agendas; getting updates from their parents or grown-up children when they see them again during dinner after a few weeks; and seeing their extended family a few times a year on special occasions.
Okay, then what about the people I’ve considered friends since the day I met them? Why not share life with thém? Indeed, why not? Similar story there. They might live a life that is perceived as freer than my family. But still they’re on their individualistic paths, leading to a similar outcome. Of course, I could share my realizations and perspectives, which I do. But it’s one thing to hear, another thing to truly innerstand, and another thing to act. And who am I to change anyone’s mind? I can’t demand anyone to share life with me, even if I consider them as my best friends and vice versa.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not blaming anyone here, just describing reality as it currently is. And of course, there is a sense of mourning present within me.
So what to do? I feel myself, I cannot be okay with that same way of life. I know I’m not independent and I don’t want to be. I want to care for a body bigger than myself (or than myself + partner + children), and be cared for by that bigger body—but still on a personal level of friendship, not on the impersonal level like a nation-state.
So, my only option is to find those others who do see reality in the same way, who do want to share life, who do want to support and empower one another. I found one of those so far, for which I’m infinitely grateful. Now it’s time for the others to appear.
How tribe?
So what does it take to succeed in building a solid tribe?
Everything.
It’s either all-in, either nothing.
It requires conviction, courage and persistence in a world of disconnection. No doubt it’s an important reason why so few are doing it.
“Then what about all the intentional communities?”, I hear you think. It’s a slightly different concept. People in communities are making it their priorities to find a safe shelter, grow their own food, maybe use their own currencies. Those are steps in the right direction and elements that will eventually be part of the tribe’s environment too. But communities don’t focus as much on the core: the people and the cohesion between the people. That’s why they mostly fail. In communities, people often come and go, making it socially unstable. Often there are struggles in power dynamics, romantic dynamics and financial dynamics. Often it’s one person or a couple finding and getting a land (the baby) and then welcoming other people to the land, who are basically adopting the baby (the land). They usually didn’t start from a group of people who fully committed to each other, who went through deep bonding on all levels (mental, emotional, physical & existential), who went successfully through multiple highs and lows together, who would give their lives for each other, who then eventually, as one solid unit, found and created their dream home (their shared baby).
That’s the tough way. And it’s probably the durable way.
We’ll only know for sure once we experience the outcome.
What does that mean on a practical level? Here follows a non-exhaustive list in arbitrary order of aspects we deem necessary in the tribe building process, based on experience. I may update this list as time passes:
The joint vision is used as glue to go through ups and downs, through joys and hardships.
Usually people put their personal desires and their own positive feelings as guidelines for their actions, decisions and movements. Now it’s about sticking together for the common purpose, regardless of how many ego-rooted difficulties will be arising. You board a sailing (friend)ship that has a specific destination and you can’t just jump off it on the way. No escape.
It’s a tough one for many, especially with so many options, possibilities and opportunities to choose from in our time, all potentially leading to a form of pleasure (‘the grass is greener on the other side’ type of thing). Yet, do all those options bring true fulfillment? And did you sort out your basic needs yet (safety, food, shelter and connection) in a sustainable way? I suggest you reflect on that.
Whatever problem you have is the problem of the group. Whatever damage you do to yourself, you do to the group.
It becomes very important to know yourself deeply and clear out shadow thoughts and behaviors from your field, using the group’s support. This requires a lot of patience, sharing, listening and reflecting.
Drinking, smoking and doing drugs are examples of self-harm, usually rooted in fear and lack. The group as support system will turn that fear and lack into love and abundance (see my article From False to True Self). Self-harm will start disappearing.Similarly to the previous point, each individual’s well-being is the well-being of the group.
This means you don’t focus only on your own well-being, but also on that of the others (without neglécting your own well-being). This means training empathy, making decisions that fit for everyone, as well as changing certain conditioned behavior patterns and coping mechanisms for the sake of the group. This may feel like a limit in freedom. In a way it is. At this stage, individual freedom isn’t the highest value anymore: group harmony is. When the group is not in harmony, nothing durable will be created. When the group is in harmony, magic happens.
We eat the same food, at the same times of the day.
Yep, many triggers might go off from this one, especially with so many different diets in existence. But do you remember the saying “you are what you eat”? What you take into your body, shapes you. Not only physically, but also energetically. So, if everyone takes in the same food at the same moments of the day, the group’s body becomes one. And unity equals strength and resilience. Does that mean there will have to be some compromises? Maybe. Probably. But there are never obligations. Only knowledge from experience, and acting on it out of free will, finding common ground.
Money is not an individual resource anymore.
Money is a form of trust. Trust is a unified condition within the group. Therefore, money belongs to the whole group. Important to note: this is true once there has been a clear mutual commitment to be part of the tribe. Only then, the necessary trust emerges to share resources freely (which goes also beyond money). Before any clear commitment, there still exists individuality and thus individual bank accounts.
As a side note: it’s definitely easier to share resources earned through a group project or business, with that group, than resources earned before forming a tribe, when still working for oneself. Yet it’s in the latter that a real test of commitment and trust is hidden. And an opportunity for spiritual expansion.Romantic tendencies do not get priority, group cohesion does.
If the subject of money (and resources in general) is a difficult one, than the topic of romantic love is probably the hardest. We could write a whole article about this, but here I want to keep it brief. Romantic love is one-on-one. Mostly. I know nowadays there are some alternatives (re-)emerging, like polyamory or non-monogamy in general. But still, those are mostly focused on fulfilling individual desires and having multiple partners in an individualistic system. Romantic love is about duality. The tribe is about plurality. It’s about staying faithful to your group, whether it’s a mixed-gender group or brotherhood / sisterhood (another article can be written about that). In the tribe, it’s more about the deep friendship & family type of love (‘storge’) than romantic love. See it as a group marriage. That’s really what it takes. It doesn’t mean a full commitment should be made from the get-go. Naturally, there is a trial period. But the moment of commitment will have to come, in order to speak of a tribe in the real sense. It also doesn’t mean there will be no room for dyadic romantic love outside the tribe in the longer term—as long as it doesn’t harm the harmony of the group: most probably meaning only once the group is solid and once full safety is reached. Because where attention goes, energy flows, and dualistic romantic attention can easily break a group, by attention and thus energy flowing elsewhere.
Those are the main elements I currently think of. As mentioned before, I may add more as time passes.
Are you scared off? I would get that. A tribe may not be for everyone. And it’s probably not the right time for everyone. The longing for it usually seems to come after having lived very freely—almost hedonistically—for an extended period, and having gone through many personal experiences, never leading to complete fulfillment. If you’re ready for it, you’ll know. But even if you know deep inside you’re ready, it takes time and experimenting to really be convinced. So don’t take my words for it. Try it for yourself. We have quite a few open spots in our Prototribe, ready to turn it into the Archetribe.
Paradigms are shifting.
With trust,
Chris
Author’s note: this article is written by a human, not AI.
