You can always find someone to have a drink with you. You can always find someone to talk to. You can always find someone to help you change that flat tire. Hell you can even find someone to drive you to the airport. There are people everywhere who can keep you connected. I mean who among us hasn't told their entire life story to a total stranger in a long line at the grocery store? Huh? No. Me neither. That would just be creepy.
But then there are those times that you can only call those closest to you. The friends you consider family. Your tribe. I got a call from one of my tribesmen today. I answered that call. Because that is what you do. Because that is what unconditional love is. It's like a hangnail. You know. It hurts when you play with it. But it also feels kinda good. And sometimes you just pull that piece of skin up to your elbow. I remember seeing a comic do that hangnail bit on Johnny Carson. I don't know his name to credit him. A quick Google search warranted nothing but Johnny telling his own hangnail jokes. I hope his career took off. Or at least has the cult following of Pauly Shore. Every comic at least deserves that.
I'm pretty sure that I have been a hangnail to many of those around me. I know I have been as obnoxious as Pauly Shore. But boy oh boy have I got a great tribe now. I have people who travel after work in twenty degree weather to cram into a crowded party room to hear me tell my yuck yucks. Like my nine buddies who cam out last night and filled a huge table up front in West Jersey. I have a ton of doors all over the country that would open and let me in if I needed out of the cold. Like my pal Jennifer who always has a futon for me on the Upper East Side when I get stage time in New York. And according to Shawn Achor, a Harvard researcher who studied happiness, the only thing in common with happy people over all socio-economic lines is their connection to their community. Check out his Ted Talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work?language=en
It's good. and find your tribe. That's good too.