> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.tom-shaw.uk/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Less Community, More Integrity - URL: https://www.tom-shaw.uk/less-community-more-integrity/ - Published: 2026-02-24T16:01:35.000Z - Updated: 2026-02-24T16:01:35.000Z - Description: Escaping A Cycle of Validation-Seeking - Author: Tom Shaw - Tags: Reflections, #substack, #substack-type-newsletter, #substack-access-everyone, #Import 2026-10-24 12:50 --- > **Community**A group of people living in the same locality.A group of people having common interests.*the scientific community; the international business community.* --- The search for a “like-minded community” is one that many people I speak with are on. For many reasons, people are feeling that those they have spent much of their life with are no longer aligned with the values and beliefs they now hold. This is a journey I know - [I left dental school](https://www.tom-shaw.uk/why-bother/) and let the connections I’d made there dissipate when I realised that allopathic Western medicine was not aligned with holistic healing. I allowed other past connections to fade too, pursuing the company of those who saw through the various manipulation and control systems operating globally. I believed that was the solution to why I felt myself to be so at odds with my surroundings - I just needed “better” surroundings, and people surrounding me! Yet, I found no permanence, nor sense of “home” - I could cycle between different communities, still not feeling like I was “seen” for what I could bring, in one way or another. I would join more and more communities, without ever being able to be fully present in one. I remained uprooted. [Tree-Eyed Sonnet![](https://cdn.mymidnight.blog/a14ac55a4f27472c5d894ec1c3c743d2/substack-post-media-s3-amazonaws-com/public/images/068343a6-57a3-4030-bc68-967f8bf1705f_1280x1280.png)Tom ShawTom Shaw![](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1514492345390-bf009f5352f7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwxMXx8dHJlZSUyMGtub3R8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM1OTI1NTg1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=1080)](https://www.tom-shaw.uk/tree-eyed-sonnet/) What was going wrong? The answer, with hindsight, is unsurprising: I was looking for the wrong thing. All this time I was searching for “community” - when what I needed was integrity. --- > **Integrity**Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.*a leader of great integrity.*The state of being unimpaired; soundness.*The building’s integrity remained intact despite the earthquake.*The quality or condition of being whole or undivided; completeness.*replaced a lost book to restore the integrity of his collection.* --- When I am at my highest integrity, I can be depended on. I make decisions and engage in interactions with a clear judgement. I do not compromise on my needs and values for the sake of convenience or appeasement. I refuse to fracture my identity; I refuse to edit-out the parts of me that some may find undesirable, because those parts of me are the exact reason why I also have the gifts and offerings that I do. I thought integrity used to mean adapting to the container. And when my inner compass was telling me to stand my own ground in the face of discomfort, I would give in to the ease and comfort of simply hopping over to a new community. It should have been no surprise I could never find the sense of completeness I was looking for - and, subsequently, why I felt it difficult to bring my gifts of holding space and narrative rewriting into the spaces that needed it most. The leash here was the wrong way round; the container should be shaping itself to my most integral self - and calling me up when I’m not meeting the mark. [A BarghestTell me what you have been named And what that means to you. Does it follow silently To bite onto the new? All that great expectation, Mythology and lore, Does it sta…![](https://cdn.mymidnight.blog/a14ac55a4f27472c5d894ec1c3c743d2/substack-post-media-s3-amazonaws-com/public/images/068343a6-57a3-4030-bc68-967f8bf1705f_1280x1280.png)Tom ShawTom Shaw![](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1643665338709-97718d23787d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwyfHxibGFjayUyMHdvbGZ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzUxODAzMzA4fDA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080)](https://www.tom-shaw.uk/a-barghest/) If I’m in a community where everyone has high integrity, it doesn’t matter if we are not all “like-minded” - in fact, it’s a strength. I can disagree with people who have integrity, knowing their standpoint comes from an experience or perspective I could never have achieved myself. I can still be satisfied with the outcome of challenges that we work on together, even when that outcome isn’t what I was originally looking to achieve. Even in those moments, integrity creates the safety necessary to say what needs to be said without a corrupting filter, allowing for disagreement without destabilisation. It removes the fear that difference equals disloyalty. Without integrity, community becomes conformity - something that Orwell’s Animal Farm illustrates brilliantly. Shared ideals are corrupted into blind allegiance, with dissent becoming betrayal. The language of unity and the poetry of “The Beast of England” masked the loss of moral clarity. No matter what happens, I will always have to live with myself and the decisions I’ve made. My integrity must be the starting point of any action I take and relations I enter in to. That is the place that durable trust is built; any community that forms without that will be performative and fragile. Yes, choosing integrity can be painful. Yet, there is strength and healing in the act of choosing *not* to abandon who I am. When integrity leads, community usually follows. And a community that follows is better than chasing community wherever it goes. Write to me and let me know: what is your experience with changing communities? And how do you remain integral no matter the circumstance? [Leave a comment](#ghost-comments-root) --- Thank you for making time to read this piece. I put together these thoughts just as I was finishing up my commitments with [Anarchapulco](https://anarchapulco.com/?ref=tom-shaw.uk) and right before I head to Florida as part of the [Young Builders program with Solari](https://solari.com/?ref=tom-shaw.uk). Integrity was a big piece of the first conversation I had with Catherine Austin-Fitts, and I suspect it won’t be the last time I’ll be covering the subject with what’s to come in the weeks ahead. As some of you may know, Puerto Vallarta was embroiled in [a swathe of violence and arson](https://vigilante.tv/w/2D1bKsNFtV52MpXKeaiY4U?ref=tom-shaw.uk) in relation to the murder of the drug lord El Mencho - right as I was in the town finishing up Anarchapulco. Things have calmed down since and things are returning to normal right as I finish this piece up. I am absolutely fine and safe, but very exhausted. As such, I’ve made the decision to cancel my appearance at PORTAL Gathering in Tepoztlan, Morelos. I hope everyone going still has a wonderful time, and I hope to come to a future event. (Florida is on my route back to the UK anyways, and I have no speaking commitment there, so I made the decision to keep it.) It’s too early for me to bring my thoughts together on this, but I have a poem in mind that I hope to work on in the coming weeks about this. With gratitude, Tom [Subscribe](#/portal/signup)