The life lessons of Burning Man, Mark Morford

[madokie]

The life lessons of Burning Man
Is there anything you *can't* learn from the insane desert art festival?
By Mark Morford

Get real. Burning Man is a completely outrageous, multimillion dollar, for-profit, impossibly unsustainable theatrical megaproduction. This is, in part, why we love it. Tickets are $300 and it costs many hundreds if not thousands more in gear, supplies, transport to attend, and while you can get there and do it on a grimy hippie sort've budget if you leech on your friends just right, it's basically a very expensive, meta-bohemian, chemically enhanced anti-vacation. It's all a grand and ridiculous and temporary illusion, not at all meant to be transposed on a livable sphere.

Or is it? You may not be able to take the pseudo-economy and the neo-pagan society back with you, but what you can transpose, of course, is the sense of awe. The fearlessness. The creative wonder. You can bring back confidence. Abandon. Fierce joy. Really, what more could you ask for?



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(Full URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/08/28/notes082809.DTL&nl=fix)

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. As a veteran "burner"

I can offer that Burning Man is unlike any other gathering on the planet. I wish all my Garage Mahal tribesman a great burn this year! I wish I was there with you crazy cats!