The Keys to Building Real Community
Think of the 🤍 button as "would you recommend this to a friend?"
Having celebrated a birthday earlier this month, it always helps me to remember that we cumple años folks, so turning (in my case) 53 means turning the page on that one and beginning the 54th year.
I also got Covid! Finally! I mean, I was starting to believe it just wasn’t going to happen. No surprise, all it took was going to see a Tom Petty cover band (I know) on a Saturday might (I know, I know) in exurban Marin County and… I know, I guess I was kind of asking for it. I felt pretty gross for a couple of days, but I’m back at it now and feeling at least 70% of my usual mostly-euphoric, and yet still sometimes-morose self. Delirious, really, is the state of mind that I enjoy most, but I just don’t get to experience that often enough. Any ideas on that score that don’t involve drugs or jet lag?
Finding Community
I want to write about community, and I’m not quite sure how to get there from my birthday. It’s not quite the through line about how ‘my community’ really showed up on my birthday. It’s not that they didn’t, but I did have Covid, and also, well, it’s not just about showing up on my birthday. Real community is there all the time—and that’s where I find a bit more of a connection. Community has been a challenge for me, especially early in life—and then it became a career, and now, more and more, it’s evidence of how we’re all connected.
When I was a kid, my friends—we certainly didn’t call it “community” then—were the people I did stuff with. What we did was get high and drink, and not all that much else. I know that’s not all that unusual, but it didn’t exactly make for the most vibrantly alive group of people to run with, when the primary activity was burying ourselves under as many substances as we possibly could. Still, I had and still have a lot of beautiful friends from that world, and those of us that survived certainly do constitute a very strong community at this point. We recognize each other, we share history, we know names and places, we check in, we look each other up—often without some hesitancy about getting too close again, because the for a lot of us, myself included, we can’t help but see that shared past through stained glass. Still, we’re together in a way, and I feel how powerful that is. One of my first and best friends from high school is still a close friend of mine, and I’m godfather to his first daughter. I once bought a flat with another guy from those years, and he still calls me his house-husband. Several old friends are regular readers here.
By the time I got into my thirties, I felt the pain of not having my own community that fit that era of my life. Grown out of my high school years and my twenties, I had solid, well-paying work in the early years of “digital media” here in San Francisco, but at the same time, I didn’t feel like part of that world. It was cool, I guess, but I didn't fit in. I didn’t know whether I wanted to. I didn’t, or I didn’t know how, or I didn’t care—and I also wished that I did—all of the above, really. The result was that I never really made the most of that world, and instead made a diagonal move and started my own business, which was…a community. A conference, first of all, but that’s what a conference is—a gathering of a professional community.
I knew from the start that the reason for me to do this was not just to create a great conference but to create a great community. I wanted people to actually feel that they wanted to come to my conference of their own accord, and for it to be not just worthwhile but fun, interesting, and a good use of their time, in their own judgement, not just because their company was paying their way to some three-day boondoggle in a cool-sounding city.
The thing is: it worked. We focused from the start on creating great community, and people noticed. We made sure everyone in the room were peers, we introduced new people, we made people feel included. We didn’t just “make” people feel as if they could trust each other—we created an environment that actually did serve as an authentic foundation for meaningful connection, and the result was real trust. And also, a pretty good time, even if the subject matter of the conference was as dry as the lowest, most forlorn and forgotten basin in the dustiest corner of some still-nameless desert.
And far less consequential—but community, it turned out, did matter, and I saw that it also could be created—and even that I could create it. Thing was that the community that I had created served other people. Nothing wrong with that, but by the time it became something of substance, I was no longer one of the people that my conference served—I was the creator, the CEO, the host, and the founder—but I wasn’t really one of. I was so far inside the inner circle that I was a circle—of one. People would want to say hello to me, but the fact was, they weren’t there to meet me—they were there for the actual purpose of the whole thing, which was to connect with and learn from their working peers. I was an outsider on the inside. And, as I mentioned, I had come to have a really bad taste in my mouth about the fact that the whole thing was about…advertising.
Between then and now, I’ve learned a lot about finding and being part of communities that I actually want to be part of. One thing I’ve had to do is lead less. Lots of us are better at getting out in front than joining up. Leading isn’t necessarily harder. I’ve had to learn how to be part of something, and it’s been a major positive feature of my mid-life to find myself part of groups on the basis of my participation as opposed to my force of will in creating something. Many of these communities have been around sports such as kitesurfing, open water swimming, and paragliding, but I’ve also been part of vibrant communities of entrepreneurs (EO and others), men (EVRYMAN and others)—and now, of writers and writing.
I think one good indicator of what one “is” is the answer to the question: on what basis or through which aspect of your life do most of your interactions with other people happen? For example, if you interact with more people through sitting in therapy sessions than any other single activity, you’re probably a therapist—or someone who does a lot of therapy as a patient or client. If you meet most people playing basketball, or drums, it seems likely that you could be a pro ball player, or a dummer. As a young person, most of my interaction were with people drinking and doing drugs, and it’s true that that is what I identified with as a person, at least for some time. A “total garbage head,” as David Carr put it in his great memoir, Night of the Gun.
These days, even with just the modest volume of work that I’m putting out, the majority of my interactions with other people come through writing—through classes (although I’m not in any right now), writing groups, fellow writers, editors, publishers, and readers. This week I have one meeting on my calendar every day with someone or a group that I came into contact with through writing. One is a reader who reached out to me, another is a podcast guest that’s become a friend. Two others are fellow writers and Substackers, and another is someone who invited me on their podcast. Friday morning is my regular writing group. A full schedule, especially given that my main task is writing itself. I don’t usually have this many meetings, but it shows the power of immersing oneself and allowing community to coalesce. I feel like I’m in it, for real.
You’re all part of this
As I send this, there are now 750 of you—subscribers to my Substack, that is—with some charity, getting close to 1,000, or at least to 800. Numbers don’t really matter all that much, and I’ll get there, and to whatever the next number is, sooner or later. What’s more important are all of you who have chosen to subscribe so far, and who read my work regularly. I hear from all sorts of folks all the time, and of late it’s been especially gratifying to reconnect with old friends through my writing, as well as meet new people through my work, and through Substack. Those of you who have felt to inquire know that my door is open, and so if there’s something you’d like to talk about, just ask.
I need you to “Like” all of my posts ;)
Well, I don’t quite mean that you have to actually like all of my posts, but for those that you actually do like, let me just say 🤍🤍🤍 PLEASE take a moment to click the “Like” button 🤍🤍🤍 on the post here on Substack.
Not just this one. All of them.
I know, it’s a tiny bit of a pain in the arse, and it might feel like you’re contributing to some sort of social media barf-bag… but, in this case, a) it’s not the same as social, in that it’s not funded by advertising, and b) that little heart really helps my work bubble up on the platform so that other people can find it, c) it’s really not much of an ask, in exchange for the work that I do in writing and editing, and d) clicking the little 🤍 lets me know that you like the work! I know that a lot you read without “liking” and that’s up to you, but if you are reading my work, and you really do like it—think about it—don’t you want me to know that? I want to know!
That said, of course, I don’t write for the likes. I’m writing because I want to and need to, really—but, and, I do want people to see my work, and I am working hard to build a platform here that will serve to support that, and eventually, I hope, help me to get published.
Here’s how to interpret the 🤍 button
One way to think of the 🤍 button is as a Net Promoter Score—your click on that little heart is the answer to the question—if someone asked you about it, would you recommend this piece to a friend?
You could think of it as a favor, or you could think of it as a trade, but I think it’s just fair… if you read a piece here on Substack—not just mine, but anyone’s!—all the way though, click the 🤍
It’s the right thing to do.
Thank you, paid subscribers!
Here’s a massive shout of THANK YOU to everyone who has become a paying subscriber recently: Mary, Tom, Sean, Michael, Thom, John, Zoe, Bill, kingultra01, Julie, Tom, Danielle, Jean, Volker, Taryn, Anthony, Samir, Peter, and Zach. Those of you that have chosen to kick in some cash to support my work make a huge difference for me.
Especially if you’re a regular reader, why not join them and become a paying subscriber?
If you’re a regular reader and you’re not a paying subscriber, I’d love to hear why not, or what, if anything, would make it worthwhile for you to do so. Comments below ⬇️
Thanks to all the other writers who recommend me!
author of Sex at Dawn and Civilized to Death, who writes who writes and who writes who writes who writes author of Radical Intimacywho writes who writes
as well as
Thanks to all of my podcast guests!
Adam Gayner, Roddy McDowell, Lucas Krump, T Callahan, Bob Conlin, Anthony David Adams, Robert Ellis, Kenyon Phillips, Noah Rainey, James Brown, Fernando Desouches, Bill Maeda, Chris Ryan, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ashanti Branch, and Galen Kirkpatrick have all been outstanding guests and with Charlie Engle and Adi Jaffe coming up soon, I’m nearly at a twenty episodes. If you know of anyone who would be a good fit for BROTHERS AND TEACHERS, please let me know in the comments below.
Other Memoirists on Substack
I’ve been considering the idea of assembling a collective of other memoirists here on Substack, something like Fictionistas or Inner Life but for folks like myself,
and others. Y'all interested? Know any other memorists writing on Substack? Comments below ⬇️What Can I Do For You?
So — what can I do for you? Are there topics that you’d like to hear more about? Some way you’d like to be more connected? Some writing you’re working on yourself? How can I help?
Questions for you
What communities are you a part of that are most meaningful to you?
Through which aspect of your life do most of your interactions with other people happen?
What’s most valuable to you about being part of this community?
Always interested in connecting with other memoirists. Thanks for the shout out. Appreciate it.
Lee G. Hornbrook
“My Own Private Waste Land: T.S. Eliot, Mental Illness, and the Making of a Memoir”
https://leehornbrook.substack.com
I meet the most people at work. They're all 20-30 years older than me, but I definitely value their life experiences. I'm hoping to meet more people through other means. Thanks for the shoutout. Cheers!