For the last several years, the Esoteric Archive of Rochester (EAR) was my main “project.” I am passionate about very specific bits of local history, esotericism, and magic, and I’d been sorely unable to find the community I wanted to explore those topics alongside. So, I set out to start my own. However, in the way I had built it, the project was already a failure, if my goal was to actually build community.
I was, in fact, building a space (physically and metaphysically) specifically for me. However, I had done so under the guise of “community building” (which I wasn’t doing), so there was also this weird belief that all of the work I was doing wasn’t for me, actually, but for a future visitor or customer. I found myself trying to make deadlines for that customer, stressing myself out attempting to do anything to draw the people to me I wanted to talk to.
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