In search of my tribe

Im back in London after two years and a pandemic. I feel like a tourist, taken by the size and energy of the city and the pulse. The random collection of people streaming past me on the streets and in the tube. I know now what tourists come for, and why they marvel. There is something special with this place. As I go for a run in Hyde Park and view the greenery thats fresh for this spring my love for this city is back. I run past a squirrel thats hardly takes notice of me and I stop below a massive old oak tree, gnarled tops and massive crown.

But London can also be a lonely place. When I left at the height of the pandemic I was sick of it. As I moved abroad in 2012 I’ve lived in Ireland and the UK but when I left Sweden I was still young. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about where do I fit in, where is my home. Do I go to the US, Asia or do I stay in London. It was taking up a huge part of my mind, and I was unsettled.

I was searching for my tribe.

While I was living in Ireland, Google became my tribe. It was a place where I had tons of friends, acquaintances and people I would say hi to on a daily basis. Coming back from holidays was always a warm feeling, a social embrace of the office. Everyone welcoming me back, wanting to hear about my trip. But it was a temporary tribe, a place where people stayed for a bit then moved on. I was still looking for my permanent tribe.

Humans are tribal, it’s the way we lived for nearly all of our evolutionary history, 98,000 years of it. It’s in our DNA and…