Building Utopia

 

I have a persistent pattern that I've been working hard to overcome - I LOVE building stuff. Well, not stuff per se... more like I love building social structures. Imagine each one of us is a Lego block. I love fitting the Lego blocks together into something useful. Functional. Beautiful. 

But there's a problem with this tendency - I love the building process more than I love the finished product. I love the process more than the outcome. As a result, I have a real problem with launching ideas. For every complex idea I throw out to the world, there are another ten on the drawing board. The Tribe? This is one of those ideas. 

I launched all of this prematurely. It's not a cohesive idea... yet. If you're reading this, odds are very good you're one of the people who have been peeking at this idea. First, thank you for the interest; it means more to me than you know. Second, I apologize for the confusion. 

This idea was too good to keep on the drawing board, and if I didn't put it out there, I would spend the next five years endlessly tweaking and refining. And, quite frankly, I'm too old to waste that kind of time. 

So I launched it. It's like the PC game that sounds amazing, but when you download it, there are a million bugs that need patching. Or maybe it's like a great new concept pickup that gets released, and the first model year has a ton of recalls as the manufacturer works out the defects. 

Anyway, I don't regret launching this project prematurely because it's forced me to engage in some decidedly deep introspection about the nature of this project.

This post? This is a deep dive into my inner world to hammer out WHY this project exists. 

The Pattern I Couldn't Ignore

I've always loved building things. But I've also had a pattern of moving on before they were finished. Many times, this "building' is learning or experiencing something new. It might be an academic subject, a hobby, a career, or even a friendship. 

This manifests as cycles of interests, projects, jobs, and relationships. This wasn’t just a personality quirk; it was a psychological blueprint. It's how I'm wired. I love novelty. I love change. Growth. Evolution. 

The problem with the cycle is each phase ends. And I'm not good at goodbyes. Or, more precisely, I'm not great at managing the end phase of that cycle. 

Sometimes I drift. Sometimes I rationalize the distance. Sometimes I find flaws, ones I probably saw from the beginning, and use those as a quiet excuse to pull back. It’s not malice. It’s not even fear of grief, exactly. It’s more like a preemptive move to soften the blow I know is coming.

With hobbies or jobs, this doesn’t leave much damage. But with people? It can. Not because I didn’t care, but because I didn’t know how to end well; how to honor the season without making the separation feel like rejection. How to carry the memory without trying to recode the whole story.

This pattern has shaped a lot of my life. For a long time, I thought it was just how things worked. But now I see it more clearly; it’s a core part of me. And it’s exactly why I’m building the Tribe.

Because if I couldn’t change the pattern, maybe I could ritualize it. Maybe I could build something where goodbyes weren’t failures; where growth and separation could both be sacred.

To put it another way: The Tribe answers my long-standing question of how I can be the me that I need to be and still make the world a better place. 

This post is intended to be more for me as I work through the Gordian knot that is my inner psychological machinations, but in the process, probably explains what The Tribe is and how it works better than I could do in an intentional "about The Tribe" post.

The Seven Psychological Threads

There are seven threads that create the foundation of The Tribe. Each one plays a role.

Attachment Style: Deep Connection, Quiet Distance

Attachment styles define how we bond with others, and is normally defined as secure , anxious, dismissive, or avoidant. My style is a bit... different. 

My natural tendency is to connect fast and deeply, but only after a degree of earned safety. I'm comfortable with intimacy, I'm reasonably emotionally-intelligent, I have a strong desire for authenticity, I can be trusting, and I can show up for deep relationships. That's all pretty normal for secure attachment.

However, when it feels like something’s ending, or might end, I start to pull back and become avoidant. I disengage. I let things cool until they're just a whisper. The mechanics of this are predictable; I tend to find flaws, then use the flaws as the rationale to create the distance.

With hobbies, jobs, or other interests, that's not a major issue. With people, though, it is.

Sometimes the person IS the reason I become avoidant. If I start to get to know someone and they turn out to be an objectively terrible human being, the avoidance can sometimes manifest in confrontation to sever the relationship. More often, though, there's some sort of logistical reason the distance happens - I change jobs, move, or no longer participate in the hobby. When I no longer engage with the person regularly, the relationship fades just because of mere exposure. Or lack thereof. It's kind of like a "per-grieving" process.

Sometimes, though, we just grow apart. That's a normal cycle we all experience. We'll be in the same place at the same time as someone, develop a close relationship, then we grow in different directions. Eventually, we no longer share that which originally bonded us, so the relationship fades.

Of course, it's important to mention there will be some connections that are far more resilient to change. These connections tend to survive the changing of seasons either because there are fundamental similarities, you're both changing in the same direction, or some combination of both.

Regardless of the reason, Ive struggled with those connections that end. Enter The Tribe. The actual structure is sort of designed for two types of people. The first group are people who want to grow and change, and the second group are people who are a lot like me. Notably, the second group is likely going to also be part of the first group. People may belong to that first group initially, but later morph into the second group.

The value of the Tribe is that it creates a place for people who want the benefits of The Tribe (personal growth), but aren't going to be my lifelong friends. In other words, it's expected that they will eventually "leave the nest" once their growth reaches the limits of what The Tribe can facilitate.

For the second group? These are my people. These are the people who may be in The Tribe for the growth potential, but will likely stick around long-term because The Tribe allows them to be their authentic selves.

I wanted a place where connection could thrive, but also where exits were honored, not feared. The Tribe checks both of those boxes.

Narrative Identity: Living My Life Like a Story

We all live our lives as if it were a story. It's like each of our lives are a movie, and we're the directors AND the star.

I'm no different. Like you, I don’t just remember my life, I shape it like I'm the director. In my story, all the people surrounding me are my supporting cast.

Sometimes, other people are characters in a chapter of transformation. I've framed the people who have entered and exited my life almost as "seasons"... each one fades into the next.

There's a great deal of beauty in this framing of connections. It preserves the meaning and the value of the connection, but it also risks objectifying the experience, thus the person. As I've gained more life wisdom, I've slowly learned to allow people to write themselves into my story, which is just a poetic way of saying I've gotten better at learning to let people be who they are versus tying a bunch of my own expectations to them.

I'm not great at this, but I am better than I used to be. Yay, growth!

Anyway, The Tribe is a formal structure that requires people to write themselves into the story of The Tribe, and by extension, my life. In short, The Tribe is like a movie we're making together. Other people are no longer playing a supporting role in my movie, they're co-creators of our movie.

Existential Psychology: Chasing Meaning, Not Permanence

Entropy is real. Everything that exists today will be gone in the future. The arrow of time is unforgiving. I've accepted this intellectually a long time ago, and started living my life as such. But, thanks probably to midlife, I've just started to accept this emotionally. And that ain't an easy lift.

The impermanence of everything, on the surface, is terrifying (we'll talk about existential dread in a later post). However, it's that impermanence that makes things worthwhile, valuable, and beautiful. We'll always love a bouquet of real flowers instead of fake flowers because the real flowers die.

If you read The Book of Fire, the main idea is The Fire exists in spite of The Darkness. The Fire is going to die; that much is inevitable. But The Fire is lit anyway.

Such is The Tribe; the real-life version. None of us are going to be here in a hundred years. Everything we've made will likely be gone in a hundred years, too. Within a few generations, we'll be forgotten. The Tribe doesn't exist to make us immortal.

The Tribe exists to give us meaning today. The Tribe gives us a way to connect deeply with other people, to make a difference in the lives of people who matter, while maintaining the awareness that these connections are, ultimately, going to end. The Tribe exists in that tension. It honors that tension. Hell, it celebrates that tension.

Because that tension is what makes life meaningful.

In essence, I'm building The Tribe for transformation, not for possession.

Big Five Traits: Obsessive Passion Meets Cyclical Focus

When I find something that interests me, I don't half-ass it. I throw myself into it, often with reckless abandon. I obsess over it. I immerse myself totally. It becomes my life.

For a while.

I approach a degree of mastery. I solve the big problems. I figure out what needs to be figured out. I get to the "B+" to A-" range.

Then I quit.

This pattern is trait-driven. I'm curious and open-minded. My entire life is defined by pushing until I find boundaries, then pushing past those boundaries. Exploration. Expansion. Growth. Evolution. Once the boundary is pushed near the limits of how far I can push, I find another boundary.

The practical effect of this is it makes me like an ideological shark - I always have to be moving creatively. If I stop, I die,

The worst pain I can experience is to be trapped in the menial and the mundane.

This can make me a pretty exciting person, especially once I gain a degree of mastery. Boundaries, obstacles, and rules are challenges I push compulsively. Innovation doesn't exist in the places well-traveled.

This can also make me a pain in the ass to attempt to manage, but that's another post for another day.

The real problem comes from the people who surround me in each of these cycles of interest. Unless they're like-minded (that second group I mentioned above), the whiplash when I change directions can be disconcerting. Or, sometimes they may feel abandoned. Rightfully so. And I feel the pain of that sense of abandonment, even though that's not my intention.

The Tribe gives me a container for my cyclical nature. The Tribe embodies all of my permanent traits, which are the things I take from hobby to hobby, job to job, relationship to relationship. It's the essence of who I am as opposed to what I do, where I do it, or who I do it with.

The Tribe is my constant. And for others, it clearly defines the relationship. Like the idea of The Tribe and want to grow to become a better version of yourself, that lives a more purpose-driven, meaningful life? Great! Hop on board and enjoy the ride! But it's a ride that will end, and when it does, we'll celebrate the sliver of time we spent together. The Tribe allows us to ritualized our relationship, including that celebration when you move on to bigger, better things.

But if we really click and you find you love the constant that is The Tribe, you're welcome to stay forever and enjoy the rollercoaster!

Either way, the roles and expectations are defined. I need that in my life. And I suspect a lot of you do, too.

Intellectualization: The Mask of Logic Over Emotion

Despite being fairly skilled in emotional intelligence, I don't often experience emotion deeply and have all kinds of useful emotional coping skills. This has been a godsend for police work in general and investigations in particular because I'm largely unaffected by the horrible shit we have to experience. I can dissociate from the emotion to apply reason and logic.

However, this tendency to intellectualize requires me to remember to process emotion eventually, which causes some to go unprocessed. This is really problematic with grief. When relationships cool or end, I don't always process the loss. And like all unprocessed emotions, that grief manifests in weird, unpredictable, unpleasant ways.

As goofy as it sounds, I need a mechanism to process that grief. Or, more accurately, a mechanism to remind myself to process that grief. Writing that makes the whole idea seem absurd, but we often don't notice that which we don't notice. We don't know what we don't know.

So... The Tribe gives me that ritual that allows me to grieve endings. It's my way to honor the exit of people from my life in a way that doesn't feel like ghosting. Or worse, them getting caught up in the negativity I'll project when the flaws of my latest obsession become enough for me to rationalize an exit.

Self-Determination Theory: The Need to Teach

There are basically four situations where I feel alive: Fighting, extreme physical suffering, deeply connected sexual experiences, and teaching. Yes, I know the juxtaposition of those four things is weird. But it is what it is.

I spent most of my adult life teaching. And I loved it! I just couldn't stand the education system. Even now, as a cop, I get the most fulfillment when I can teach, which often manifests as talking with people in some form of crisis.

Anyway, I love to teach because it fits squarely in what is known as "Self-Determination Theory." The idea is we're most motivated and most fulfilled when we engage in something that meets three criteria:

• Autonomy – Our need to direct our own life and make meaningful choices
• Competence – Our need to master skills and feel effective
• Relatedness – Our need to connect deeply with others and feel seen

For me, teaching checks all of these boxes. When all three are present, we're intrinsically motivated to do whatever it is that we're doing. The great thing about intrinsic motivation? It doesn't diminish with time.

I hated our educational institution because it systematically (and intentionally) destroys teachers' autonomy. That prevented it from being an intrinsically motivating activity and forced in to be extrinsically motivating, which killed it for me.

The Tribe, though, gives me a classroom on my own terms. I've spent the last twenty years on a self-improvement journey, and this journey has paid off in spades. Over those twenty years, I've lived a truly amazing life full of great adventures. During that time, I've lived a life worth living. If I died tomorrow, I'd have lived a life worth living.

But I don't plan on dying tomorrow. I plan on continuing to live this amazing adventure-filled life. BUT, I want to share the wisdom I learned along the way. Luckily, despite being a mediocre writer, I've been an extremely prolific blogger for a couple decades, the result of which is about 1.3 million words spewed into public via the Internet. There's a whole lotta wisdom buried in that nonsense, and The Tribe gives me the classroom to teach the important stuff.

Sidebar - the real Tribe of the Fire website is still a work in progress, but for those readers who haven't known me for more than a few years, here's a sample of some of my more useful writings.

Jungian Shadow Work: Turning My Flaws Into a Blueprint

Carl Jung's influence on the Tribe is multifaceted, especially in regard to our use of archetypes. But another important Jungian contribution is shadow work.

According to Jung, the shadow is the unconscious aspect of the personality that the conscious ego does not identify with. It contains the parts of ourselves that we deem unacceptable, negative, or inferior, and therefore repress or deny. It's not ALWAYS bad, but because we deny its existence, our shadow tends to be the parts of us we hide from others... including ourselves.

As a sidebar for my cop friends - one of the best, easiest tools for understanding the suspects, witnesses, and victims we deal with is to ask them questions about the motives of other people. What they tell you explains their own motives and how they see the world. We always project our shadows, and we're never aware of it.

Anyway, a major part of growth is learning about your shadows. Jung emphasized the importance of shadow integration, which involves acknowledging, understanding, and accepting the contents of our shadow. This doesn't mean acting out our negative impulses, but rather becoming aware of them and integrating them into our conscious personality in a healthy way. By acknowledging our shadow, we can gain greater self-awareness, empathy, and psychological wholeness. It allows us to own our full humanity, both the "good" and the "bad.

For example, I was a bit of a pussy for a very long time. I avoided confrontation because, deep down, I feared violence. When violent people did violent stuff, I attributed them to being monsters.

Then I discovered mixed martial arts. At first, the violence was a little bit unsettling... not because it was scary, but because it felt good. Really good. It wasn't necessarily doing violent acts to others because I got the exact same euphoria from getting my ass kicked as I got from kicking ass. Like I said earlier, it was one of the few things that make me feel genuinely alive.

That love of violence was one of my shadows. Once recognized, it didn't take long to integrate that. I got pretty decent at violence, and more importantly, I learned how to control it with ever-greater precision and refinement.

Another sidebar - this has been another boon for my cop career. We're put in potentially violent situations all the time, especially in a patrol capacity. The single greatest benefit to being confidently skilled in violence is the accompanying ability to remain calm in the face of imminent violence. Criminals (and drunk people) are always trying to goad the police into fighting regardless of the consequences. The best de-escalation tactic is to respond with detached indifference. Instead of worrying about getting my ass kicked or worse, dying, I worry about all the paperwork it'll require. Or how dirty my uniform will get. The lesson for my cop friends - learn how to fight. Like, really fight. Then practice. The results will change the course of your career for the better.

Anyway, this whole project is me turning shadow into structure. Parts of me I used to hide or explain away have now become the architecture of what I’m building. I’ve used flaw-finding as a way to pre-grieve relationships, distancing myself before the pain of parting could touch me. I’ve rationalized endings instead of feeling them. I’ve quietly feared being seen as someone who discards people once they’ve served their “growth purpose.” I’ve played the role of teacher or builder because it felt safer than just being, because usefulness felt like the only way to stay wanted. And when connection became too complicated, I’d retreat... into solitude, into logic, into the next idea.

But instead of trying to eliminate those patterns, I’ve learned to shape them into something useful... dare I say... sacred. The Tribe gives people a place to grow and go, or grow and stay. It lets me teach without needing permanence, connect without clinging, and offer what I’ve learned with open hands. This isn’t a workaround. It’s shadow integration. The figurative "Fire" I carry doesn’t just illuminate, it burns away what no longer serves. And The Tribe is the vessel that emerged from that Fire.

What The Tribe Actually IS

So... what does this mean for you, the person who stuck around and read this entire post without zoning out?

Odds are good that means you're probably the exact person I envision when I created The Tribe. You have a vague sense something is missing. Maybe you have the perfect life on paper, yet it somehow feels empty. Or maybe you realize your life is far from perfect, but you have no idea how to fix it. It could be the base that you feel trapped in an existence that's outside of your control and you desperately want to take the reins.

Whatever the reason, all that matters is that you're here, right now, today. For you, The Tribe offers two potential paths to solving those problems. You might be a pilgrim of sorts, and The Tribe is going to provide the roadmap to get from where you are right now to that better place you deserve.

Or, you might me like me. Which, by now, you'll know... especially if you've started reading through some of that shit on the resource page I linked.

Either way, I designed The Tribe not just as a group, but as a living system for transformation, authentic connection, and potentially, honest goodbyes.

The Tribe is my answer to the pattern. It’s how I keep people close without pretending they’ll stay forever. And, for some people, the possibility of staying forever.

Conclusion

I'm not building the Tribe just to create a group. I'm building it because I needed a place where I could be fully myself: obsessive, curious, intense, and yes, deeply human. A place where I could channel all the lessons I’ve gathered over a couple decades of living, fighting, failing, loving, teaching, and starting over.

I needed a space where depth didn’t demand permanence, where growth didn’t mean losing the people you once needed to get there, and where leaving wasn’t seen as betrayal but as completion.

And if you’re anything like me, or if you're someone who's just ready to stop pretending that “fine” is good enough, you might need this place, too.

Because The Tribe isn’t a destination. It’s not a product. It’s not a social club or a secret society or a coaching funnel dressed in sacred robes.

It’s a forge.

You bring your raw material. You bring your grief, your hunger, your pattern. And we shape it. Together. With Fire. Then, maybe, you stay. Or maybe you walk out stronger, clearer, more alive than when you arrived.

Either way, you leave marked. By Fire. By truth. By connection that mattered while it lasted, and maybe, if we’re lucky, even longer.

~Jason

 

 

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