After six flights, eleven B & Bs, six hotels, 8,500 road miles, 200 pints (probably more), seven letters to royal family members, thirteen carefully crafted costumes, one quadruple vodka shot, twenty-nine nights under canvas, at least a hundred hours of YouTube ‘research’, nine newly acquired membership cards, twenty-four polished apples, three naked photos in the BN magazine, 1,079 speculative emails, and countless pleading Facebook statuses ‘Does anyone have any contacts in the ___ world?’, I now have twenty-six ceremonious ticks on my whiteboard, been twenty-six different versions of myself, and spent a year in the life of twenty-six different subcultures. I have let my FOMO run amok, which has been exhausting, but so worth it, and the journey is finally over.
It has been an absolute privilege to spend a year among this charming island’s most fascinating people. The collectors, the escapers, the nostalgics, the spiritualists, the geeks; they have welcomed me, a complete stranger, into their worlds and educated me, looked after me, even converted me.
As well as the thrill of finding myself in some utterly bizarre situations – from the latex lubing session at the vampire fetish night to my naked rendition of ‘Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West)’ – writing this book has taught me about the importance of community in an increasingly isolating society, about the unquenchable human thirst for a sense of belonging, and about the misguided trust we put in our own world view. It has offered me a whole new perspective on the world, the kind you only really find in the downward-facing dog of a naked yoga class.
I learned that human beings are excellent at finding increasingly inventive ways to socialise. For many battle re-enactors, naturists, goths, Morris dancers and SF fans, the social side of the community is far more important than their respective activities (trainspotting was the only real exception to this). You might join a choir because you like to sing, join a Morris side because you like to dance, or join a naturist society because you like to get your boobs out, but what keeps you there? The knowledge that someone has your back; that they will look out for you; that you are part of something. The fuzzy stuff.
‘It is safe here, everybody looks out for the kids and you don’t have to lock your things away.’ I lost track of the number of times I have heard people say that over the last year. It’s as if subcultures are recreating the concept of village life – your door is never locked and the kids can play safely after dark – where we know our neighbours not only well enough to borrow a cup of sugar from them, but to socialise with, to build community with, to share the upbringing of our children with. I don’t have a clue who my neighbours are in London, and I have lived in the same area for the last five years. So perhaps it’s obvious why, in an increasingly urbanised society, we seek community in other guises – in re-enactment regiments, by how we dress, or what we choose to collect.
But then there was the interesting question posed by the TZM community: is it dangerous to be tribal? Does it simply serve to instigate and maintain separation – the ‘us’ versus ‘them’, the birth of ‘other’ – leading to prejudice, discrimination, and in the worst cases, war? I think our human tendency to be solipsistic about our tribe, to harbour a sense of superiority that what we do is best, right and true, is the root cause of fanaticism. You can find fanatical pagans and cereologists, just as you can find fanatical atheists and hoaxers, but when you become obsessive about your tribe – when you become rigid and consumed by the idea of being ‘right’ – you flip the concept of community on its head.
My experiences this year have forced me to conclude that the desire to build a tribe is too deeply ingrained in humanity to reject it in favour of one homogenous ‘tribe of man’. I think the answer to this question, of whether or not it is dangerous to be tribal, depends on our capacity to be open, flexible and curious regarding what is outside of our communities. What I do know is that there is more that makes us similar than different, more that connects us than separates us, despite our all too often obsessive focus on the latter.
A good indication for me as to the openness of a community was the degree of censorship I needed to apply during my conversations with them. Some people, perhaps unsurprisingly, did not like the fact that they were sharing these pages with circus performers, naturists and vampires. But when my LARPing adventure was over, and I told my Lions of Albion family I was off to immerse myself in a week of UFOlogy, they all laughed and said, ‘Eeewww weirdos!’ They were joking, of course. In fact, they were probably the least judgemental group I could have hoped to meet. Perhaps because they know that what they do is also seen as ‘weird’ by outsiders, or perhaps because they simply know the truth: that we are all a bit odd really.
It’s all connected, you see. All of it. A tapestry of humanity made from different threads that weave and dance around each other. The Kabbalists are connected to the vampires via their appeal to energy manipulation, the extreme sports fanatics to the yogis via the concept of transformative practice and the drag queens to the LARPers via their celebration of the mask. And so on, ad infinitum.
Anyway, enough of my ramblings, let’s address the important question: did I succeed in my quest? Have I cured my FOMO? Decided which version of myself I want to be, which world I want to live in, and committed to living in it?
Absolutely not.
In fact, I think it’s got worse. I enjoyed my year in the life so much that I think I’m addicted. I remained a member of Dacre Morris for months longer than I needed to, returned to TitanCon the following year, will definitely go LARPing again, plan to do another course at Findhorn, camp at the yoga eco farm again, go to Pagan Pride, attend another London Vampire Social and probably do another battle re-enactment. Heck, I might even venture onto a nudist beach one day (after a few glasses of wine, obviously). But you know what? I don’t care. I love all of it. And I think my biggest achievement this year is coming to the realisation that this is just who I am; that I will never settle; never be content living in just one world; never commit to being a predefined version of myself. I just can’t wrestle myself into that box. And why should anyone have to?
I am a black swan, a private, a warrior priestess, a ‘have-a-go’ Rawdon, a mundane, a ‘red welly bagger’ and a textile. I am whatever I wake up as in the morning, and not always the same person who goes to bed that night. But so long as I get to live all of these bizarre and bonkers versions of myself, and embrace the variety of the human experience, that’s just fine with me.