I’ve never truly felt accepted by a community, but somehow I’ve survived by believing in myself, with the underlying assurance that community is crucial.
Over the course of the next few months, I will be publishing a series of articles on Medium that explore this idea by comparing personal experiences to research on the evil eye and how the lone-wolf operates within & without the pack.
These are the three parts:
Part 1: How do communities divide people?
Part 2: How does the lone-wolf operate within the pack?
Part 3: What is the evil eye and how does it manifest in artist communities?
Have you ever had the feeling that when something good happens for you, something maybe you’ve worked very hard for, maybe even all your life, that other people, even your friends, aren’t always actually happy for your success?
Or, have you felt, that if given an opportunity to do so, others — even friends — don’t really want to use their own social capital to broaden your voice? Maybe they aren’t actually listening to your message? Or maybe they see your success as a threat to their own?
If you have, maybe you’ve also felt that when you make an enormous point to be kind, friendly, and uplifting of anyone and everyone doing good, positive work — despite your own personal will to be equally and authentically successful — people return your kindness with suspicion or outright rudeness?
Maybe you’ve been in a relationship with an attractive person or collaborated with someone who maintains a good deal of social capital, so when you appear in public together, people pay them all the attention while continuously ignoring you, finding reasons to argue or criticize you, or treat you as secondary and a prop for the relationship? To the point where you just don’t want to engage with them?
In the 15 or so years that I’ve spent as an artist deeply fascinated by the idea of a morally and mentally healthy community as a means to personal growth and social change, I’ve experienced it all. Even from people who love me. Even from people who I collaborate with. Even from people who truly have the capacity to recognize my authentic self and how my authentic self, and them believing in my authentic self, can actually be mutually beneficial.
It’s true: all of the social relationships I’m referencing can be interpreted as a mere projection of my own insecurities within communities, but I want to point out that community itself breeds insecurity.
In all my years, I have actually never felt comfortable or confident within a community. I always find that not only do communities want you to conform to something or some idea, but also that people within them are squabbling for power. Those with the most commanding egos are looking for people to increase their social capital as well as seek out common enemies, inside their community or outside of it, with the intention to boost their own social capital.
How do communities interact with outsiders?
Something that has always confounded me, as a person driven by the idea of community, is that I’ve never actually had a full-time artistic partner (romantic or not) or a solid, momentum-building crew of friends showing up to support all of my work — (even in the easiest places of all to show up for friends… the Internet). I have friends. Good friends. But a lot of them live far or just don’t recognize the effort or purpose of the work I do on the daily. Sometimes it takes people a long time to recognize what I’m doing and/or why I’m doing it. Or it takes until they see how my work benefits them personally to care about it.
It’s not to complain, either: Over the years I have had individuals show constant support, yes. But, for me, personally, it’s rarely ever been a consistent group of people or a community. Nevertheless, the support I receive tends not to come from the people whose work most resembles my own, but from secure individuals, individuals looking for inspiration, and other self-aware artists of all genres.
It’s not uncommon for artists who take their craft seriously to feel this way. Artists thrive on a sense of competition. Even in collaborations. We make each other better at our respective crafts by being in constant action, by challenging one another and inspiring. But, I’ve found, and have been advised by wise friends, that the only way to defeat the sense of competition, jealousy, or outright ignorance is to go deeply within yourself, believe in what you stand for, and laugh off the negative or frustratingly small-minded energy others may be creating around you.
Why do other people want to test your resolve as an artist and human-being?
It’s simple: the evolving ego within all of us invites us to compare ourselves to others and see one another as competition, as if there is only so much room at the “top.” In order to answer these question for myself, I’ve had to examine my relationship with myself and with other artists and spaces. But before that, I think it’s important to take a look at various elements which play apart in this social incongruity, at least for me.
1. Collaborations
As an artist, I’ve had partners who supported as much as they possibly could and I have great friends — who live all over the world — but the actual artistic collaborations I’ve engaged in so far in my life have proven ephemeral, or at least, I hope need great amounts of space at certain points in order to be fulfilling or authentic.
Collaborations, for me, have been very serious and mostly platonic relationships with others — groups anywhere from two to 20. Within collaborations, there is often a hierarchy, if not clearly stated, based on the person putting the most work into collaboration or the one laying out the plan. If multiple people are or feel they are putting equal work in, there is a lot of room for disagreement which can cause conflict if people within the collaboration aren’t equipped with healthy communication patterns. Power-struggles are common place reasoning for fallouts in collectives and since collaborations have the magic of romance and so when a falling out occurs, it can be just as painful.
2. Artist Spaces
I’ve decided to refer to the artist space as an example of community space because, out of all of the spaces I’ve participated in during my life, the artist space — queer-identified or not — is supposedly one of the most open-minded and accepting. Yet, within one of the most accepting and open-minded spaces, there are still so, so many flaws.
Even having forged meaningful collaborative projects, as a musician, writer, and illustrator, I have still rarely felt this ultimate, overpowering sense of community that artist communities desire and speak of. I’ve seen some incredible things — in some places and spaces, are able to maintain in very impressive ways.
But, ultimately, I’ve found that if a raw, positive power does exist, it tends to only exist in small pockets of these communities, and unfortunately the most rewarding take-away tends to not always extend outward or outside the space it originally existed in, because of the groups need to separate itself and see other communities as “other.”
David Wojnarowicz dispels the myth of the one-tribe nation in his book “Close to the Knives,” by asserting that within the illusion of a one-tribe nation there are real tribes. In this sense, within any illusion of community, smaller communities exist which creates a sense of division within the overall group.
Because of interpersonal drama, a need to take sides and have a common enemy, and a lack of true social-consciousness, sometimes the positive power doesn’t actually exist within the community internally, the way those running it want it to. Those running it often want to assert their power within the space and use that as a deflective tool to not-collaborate effectively outside of the space. They squabble for power within their collective.
As a musician, I do and have been invited to play or perform at some of these spaces. (Many have ignored me as a performer but welcome me as an attendee.) As a participant, I’ve always made a conscious effort to treat those running it and the other performers and artists present with respect and just hope for the same in return. And yet, for some reason, in certain cases, I don’t always get that respect back.
The most prevalent form of disrespect I receive is people running the house refusing to book me or just outright ignoring me, even when I continuously praise their work and egos. I’ve seen this happen, quite often, to women, POC, and other minorities.
When I am not invited to perform or participate in what artist communities have created (or I’m only asked last second, or if someone — through their own social capital — has to try really hard to convince someone else in the group to book me), the other performers and artists involved professedly expect me or to be there — or everywhere, all the time, and to know about everything they are doing, what’s going on in their art communities in general, and to regularly show up for them and their hard-work — and sometimes hold it against me if I’m not there. **
I have felt regularly left out of artist communities, except as an observer — even at spaces my friends run — and tend to find out later, someone, usually another woman (but has also been men), within the group had some sort of beef with me that I could sense but tended to be totally unaware of the reasoning for — which I blame both on the evolving ego of those running the space as well as a lack of healthy communication patterns.
This is typically what we all refer to as “haters” — a term derived from hip-hop culture.
**This is not true of all artist communities, just a generalization of what I’ve experienced in the last 10 years or so.
3. Social media egos/texting
Because I’m not dating, a solid member of a friend-crew, or BFF with anyone involved in a lot of these art spaces (most of my best friends are the powerful alone-types), honestly, it’s pretty rare anyone even texts me about any of these happenings. They just think I’m supposed to know, based on their social capital, via social media, posters around town, or psychically, I suppose. Because of the powers that be, it’s supposed to be somewhat secretive, sure. But it tends to make me feel more like maybe they don’t want me there or appreciate my presence at all. (Ha. Ha.)
I get it though to an extent. As a performer, I stopped texting people about my shows years and years ago. I’m not talking about text-blasts, though; I’m talking about one-on-one connection — via text or a simple phone call.
I’ve even experimented with it. For two years, I made the decision to stop going out anywhere unless someone invited me personally. No facebook event, no text blast, no group chat, no posters hanging in the neighborhood. And guess what? I rarely left the house. It was kind of nice, in ways. I could focus on myself, my work, maintain a partnership, and read, watch movies, and listen to music a good deal. But it was pretty depressing, overall. It made me think the people I was surrounded by either:
1) did not like any of the same things I like.
2) wanted me to come out somewhere socially and expected their own social-ego to draw me in as the main event.
3) did not actually enjoyed my presence.
4. Gender
Gender plays an enormous role in people’s experiences in social spaces. Identity politics in general do, but here I am going to focus on gender, as an outward or inward expression. As a white, cis-woman who has gone back and forth between identifying as straight, bi-sexual, queer, and a lesbian, depending on my current partnerships, I have seen my gender role play out from various perspectives.
As a woman, growing up, it was hard for me to form a band with guys if I wasn’t dating one of them (I got kicked out of two bands immediately after breaking up with a guy in them). It was hard for me to form a band with women if any of them wanted to be the leader and viewed my work-ethic or personality as a threat. I have found the same to be true in terms of how welcoming people are to me in both artistic and non-artistic social spaces. I’ll give two anecdotes so I am not just generalizing.
Example of male-ego being threatened:
- A few weeks ago, I was at a bar, and a girl introduced herself to me as a teacher. As a teacher, we had lot to talk about. We were having an in-depth conversation (I am pretty decent at holding long conversations with people who are willing to engage, in general.) I noticed that her boyfriend did not like this very much, putting his arm around her, tightly and gripping her shoulder. So I changed my body language in an attempt to indicate I wasn’t in fact interested in this woman romantically, but he continued to glare at us. So I got up and left and went to another bar across the street. Hours later, I had honestly totally forgotten about the interaction when I saw the boyfriend stomp into the bar and demand to know where his girlfriend was, calling her by name. “Who? I’m sorry,” I responded, as I had not actually remembered her name. In an angered retort, he shouted “I dunno man, you were talking to her for like an hour across the street.”
Example of female-ego being threatened:
- I have way too many of these anecdotes to even choose one (for both genders) and I also know that people who have wronged me in this regard may be reading it, so I’m just going to go with a very basic example — as I’m not trying to offend anyone, but encourage us all to be self-aware. Other than losing almost all my male friends to female partners (as in we are no longer allowed to be friends when they are dating), as is true of the previous example, I’ve experienced female egos being threatened by my energy from women I barely know. For example, a band I used to be in used to play with another band who was three men and one female member. The female member was dating one of the guys in the band (naturally) and didn’t play an instrument, just sang. My all-female band played with this band several times. And she still never said hello to any of us, not even once, on her own terms. I would try to engage with her but she was never interested in having a conversation. Though, I’d see her smiling and having entertaining conversations with others all over the bar. Every time I saw her out (in public, not at one of our shows), she would look over my head or past me, even if I tried to smile at her as if she didn’t know me. Unsurprisingly, we never played a show with that band again until she left the group.
5. Self-loathing
Though I wrote it last, for me, this is perhaps one of the most strong tenants in how communities play a role in dividing us. For years, anytime one of the above-mentioned issues occurred to me in a social circumstance, I would revert immediately to self-loathing. It would often take a friend to help me see that it wasn’t my fault, but a reflection of who that person is, urging me to not take it personally.
If I wasn’t booked or invited to events personally — but only through group messages — I would often think “Wow, maybe I smell or I’m just awful company — “. It is a dark hole I’ve had to dive into, spending so much time alone. I have, however, come to the conclusion that a) I smell great b) I am really fun company when I’m treated with respect and appreciated for my presence.
These 5 elements (collaborations, space, social media egos, gender, and self-loathing) play a role in how communities divide one another. In the next two parts, I will refer to these elements as well as others as I explore how becoming the lone-wolf and having self-confidence helped me to dispel the evil eye.
Jennifer B. Larson is a licensed behavioral specialist, teacher, self-published writer & illustrator, creator of Pulp Oddyssey and Disappearing Media, writer and performer on The Ghost Planet, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist in Swimsuit Addition and beastii living in Chicago.
