Over the years I’ve had friends tell me about their experiences on the mesa.
Burning Man is one of those things that is very unlike me. I’m a control freak (more or less). I like order instead of chaos, and I’m not someone who indulges in recreational drugs.
My friends descriptions of the Burning Man festival paint descriptions of a beautiful chaos. Some of my friends said flatly they spent the festival naked, high, and having sex at random with other people who were just as naked, high, and out of control.
Yes, this would seem to be something that is 180° counter to my nature. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always found the idea of attending the festival attractive. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to just completely let go.
What would it feel like to shed all the conditioning of society and embrace the wildness for a few days? Could I even do that, or are my controls locked down so tight I can’t be wild as the wind? In my youth I could easily shed society’s rules, my clothes, and inhibitions, now, I’m not so sure I could.
The art pieces that get assembled are often spectacular, I’ve been told that the pictures don’t do them justice because you lose the scale of the piece. I’d imagine they’re really spectacular if you’re seriously fucked up!
I’ve never been able to attend. In my 30s and 40s it was always about working and no matter how many months in advance I asked for vacation time, it was always denied.
I was shocked and surprised, while working at a military contracting company, when I asked for a week of vacation and it was granted.
That was literally the first time and perhaps the only time in my 40+ years of employment when I was granted my earned vacation time with no hassle or questions asked. I scrambled to secure all the reservations after the vacation approval. Since I’d always had vacation requests denied, I hadn’t pre-reserved my spot because some of the reservation was non-refundable.
I was leaving the country, so I had to notify the security folks. They were nice, they educated me about clearances and leaving the country. They hooked me up with a training class with about 20 other folks. Then off I went. Scuba Diving in a foreign country. It was great fun!
I think the military contractor might have raised their eyebrows if I’d gone to Burning Man. But probably not too much, as long as I didn’t come back to work on Tuesday morning still loaded.
Burning Man has always seemed to me to be an opportunity to step into a Mad Max movie. Generally speaking that’s not something I’d do without being heavily armed. Burning Man might be thought of as Mad Max without the gunfire.
One friend suggested that with my skin type, I’d probably need to build a suit out of a space blanket, or perhaps a still-suit from Dune. He laughingly said that he didn’t think there was enough sunscreen on the planet to protect me from being fried. He did point out that the space blanket suit could be a sellable item, or at least a great art piece.
This led me to rethink going to Burning Man. After all it’s the art piece that is supposed to burn, not the overly fair skinned attendees.
I thought perhaps I could enjoy the festival by adopting a Vampire schedule. But being in a tent on a desert mesa trying to sleep during the day would be problematic.
If I had to run around all day long in a reflective encounter suit like I was on another planet, and couldn’t enjoy dancing naked in the sun with the other festival goers then what was the point?
I briefly considered going to Burning Man this year.
2023 has been a rough year and mentally checking out for four or five days sounded attractive. There wasn’t enough time and a few too many moving pieces to allow me to go, once I thought of it.
How much SPF Ten Billion could I lay my hands on, was one hurdle. I’ve seen photos of people dressed literally in mud. That would work as long as the mud wasn’t flaking off every 2 minutes.
As luck would have it, had I gone this year I’d have had an abundance of mud. I just read there were 73,000 campers are stranded on the mesa due to heavy rain that has turned the desert into mud. Apparently officials are telling campers to conserve food and water because it’s going to take some time for the area to be dry enough to be navigable.
I’m glad I didn’t go.
It’s one thing to tic something off your bucket list and have fun doing it. It’s quite another to want to tick something off the bucket list and be totally miserable doing it.
Besides I’d have been alone, and I’d have had muddy equipment, a muddy me, and a muddy dog to pack into my muddy vehicle. I’d have “Burning Man Mud” in my vehicle forever.
Experiences are supposed to change and enhance you. But I don’t want to be reminded of an experience, (good or bad) every time I drive somewhere.
Maybe next year…
