Ask someone about their favorite obsession and watch what happens.
Their posture changes. Their voice speeds up. Their hands start moving. Whether it’s Brazilian jiu-jitsu, woodworking, astronomy, sourdough, or some obscure corner of World War II history nobody else gives a damn about, they come alive. And the strange part is that it’s contagious. You can know absolutely nothing about the subject and still find yourself leaning in.
I’ve always loved those people. Some of the most interesting humans I know are a little weird, and the weird passions are exactly what make them interesting. (Yes, I’m aware of the irony, given how long I’ve been obsessing over this Tribe shit.)
I think there’s a lesson hiding in there, and it might be one of the simplest ways to make life more meaningful: Find something you love, immerse yourself in it, and see what you can do with it. In The Tribe of the Fire, we call this Finding Your Fire.
When Did You Last Lose Track of Time?
Think about the last time you were so absorbed in something that hours disappeared. Maybe you were training, writing, fixing something, playing music, or exploring a place you’d never been. You were focused, challenged, and completely in it.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called this experience flow. It tends to show up when a challenge matches our abilities and we have clear goals and feedback, and the activity becomes rewarding for its own sake. Research links flow to engagement and well-being, though it isn’t guaranteed just because something is fun.
That matters because flourishing is about more than being happy or avoiding pain. It includes building capability, finding meaning, exercising autonomy, and engaging with life. A worthwhile passion can offer all of that. It gives you something to explore, something to improve, and something to look forward to.
If you’ve been feeling The Ache, that quiet sense that something important is missing, rediscovering a passion may be a powerful first step. Not a cure, just a first step.
Your Fire Gets Brighter With Company
Tribe Theory looks at flourishing in three places: ourselves, our close relationships, and our communities. What I love about our passions is that they can feed all three.
On our own, a passion builds curiosity, competence, and confidence. But something else happens when we share it. We meet people with similar interests, learn from those who know more, and find chances to cooperate. Some of those people become friends.
Now imagine a group that meets regularly around that shared interest. They build skills together, help each other through challenges, and make memories. Given enough time and the right conditions, they may develop the trust, reciprocity, and shared responsibility that define a healthy tribe.
The activity brings people together. The relationships give them a reason to return.
Consider someone who loves cooking. Making an incredible meal is rewarding. But teaching a few friends to cook creates something different: People learn, laugh at their mistakes, swap stories, and eat together. The same goes for martial arts, gardening, photography, hiking, music, and just about anything else people love doing.
That’s why I want The Tribe to celebrate unusual interests, not sand them down so we're all doing the same things all the time. A flourishing community doesn’t need everyone to love the same things. It gives people a safe harbor to share what makes them different, which is a rare thing in a world of increasing conformity. Most of us have a unique, authentic self buried under the expectations of modern life. Our passions are often the shovel.
Five Ways to Fan Your Fire
If you’re not sure where to start, or you’ve neglected your Fire for years, these five practices help:
- Learn. Go deeper into what interests you and build real skill and knowledge.
- Connect. Spend time with people who share your passion.
- Play. Make room for joy, exploration, and creativity, with no performance review.
- Transcend. Let your passion widen your perspective and give you a sense of something bigger than yourself.
- Contribute. Share what you love in ways that help people and strengthen communities.
Teaching Your Fire
This leads to one of the central ideas behind The Tribe: What if we could teach people not only to find their passions, but to turn them into meaningful experiences for others?
Picture a photography instructor who teaches excellent technique while helping students collaborate and become friends. Or a martial arts instructor who builds confidence, cooperation, restraint, and mutual protection alongside physical skill.
That’s the purpose of Social Experience Design, our applied method for creating shared experiences that encourage learning, capability, connection, and contribution. We don’t manufacture friendships or force people to trust each other. We create enjoyable, meaningful reasons for people to interact, then cultivate the conditions where real relationships can grow on their own.
The subject still matters. We want people to become better cooks, photographers, gardeners, and martial artists. But we also want the experience to give them something beyond the lesson.
Where We’re Testing It
Our first real-world experiment is Tribe Experience 101, a class that combines practical philosophy, inclusive martial arts training, and shared fellowship. Participants learn about flourishing while practicing its principles together.
Part of that process is helping people start looking for their own Fire. What do you love doing? What are you curious about? What have you neglected? What could you share with someone else?
Not everyone will know right away. Some people haven’t had room to explore an interest in years. Others will discover something new through the people they meet. And as participants learn the basics of Social Experience Design, they may start imagining how their interests could become experiences for others: a woodworking workshop, a guided hike, a history talk that makes the past come alive.
A proposed Tribe Experience 102 would go further, teaching interested participants to design and lead their own classes, possibly building independent educational businesses. But becoming an instructor isn’t required. The first goal is simply to help people find something meaningful and enjoy it.
The Fire Is Meant to Be Shared
One principle I want at the heart of The Tribe is that everyone should have chances to contribute something valuable. Not because they owe the group, but because giving to something you care about is deeply rewarding.
A gardener shares seeds and knowledge. A musician teaches someone their first song. A martial artist helps a friend become more capable and confident. None of that requires a business or a formal title. It just takes someone with something worth sharing and someone interested in receiving it.
And here’s the bigger possibility. Something you love may become something you’re good at. Something you’re good at may become something worth sharing. And something worth sharing may become the foundation of a community that changes people’s lives.
So here’s my question for you:
What do you love doing so much that you could lose yourself in it for hours? And what might happen if you invited a few other people to experience it with you?
In the next post, I’ll dig into whether shared passions can be deliberately shaped into experiences that help people flourish together. I think they can. Let’s find out.
~Jason
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