Burning man

I just got back from Black Rock City, a temporary experimental place built (and then destroyed) yearly by a large group of crazy, creative people. The city is in the Nevada desert, a rather inhospitable place plagued by extreme temperatures, mad dust storms and this year thunderstorms and hail. It is a flat, dead area - nothing lives there, no trees, no shrubs, not even mosquitoes or flies. The goal is to bring to life an ideal society for a while there, in the hope of having a lasting impact on those who took part in it.

Having seen many inspiring photos of the event online I had been looking forward to attending for years. 
I loved it.

Total creative chaos
Black Rock City is a huge, chaotic place. There are just so many things going on everywhere, all the time. The event is growing each year, and so is the size of the city and the number of events, art cars, artworks, camps and so on. And everything is different by day and by night. It's overwhelming at first. I was a lot happier when I gave up on trying to see everything. The nice thing is that there is so much to do that you really can just wonder around and stop at different places as you go, there's no real need to plan anything. 

Participation

Everywhere you look there are chances to get involved, learn something, meet cool people, climb the art, express yourself. If you're standing in one spot for a little while odds are someone will come and talk to you, and maybe invite you to a workshop or a bar, or a walk around the place. Though most people come in groups, it's a very social festival and meeting new people is easy.

Makers
The thing that most impressed me was what amazing giant structures regular people manage to create for the event. Anyone can build something, and people spend years building the most amazing works of art, from burnable wooden structures to themed camps and art cars that transport people around the playa. I have no idea how people manage to transport some of this stuff to the desert. 

Even those who don't bring something for others to participate in often have amazing costumes and crazy decorated bikes, and many people give away food, drinks and homemade souvenirs too. 

The art changes each year (each year has a theme), so the festival is always different. 

Community
The atmosphere is great and people are generally wonderful to each other. There's a real feeling of community. Talking to strangers is the norm, and people don't seem to judge each other even though people tend to express themselves in extreme ways (mad costumes, mixed gender norms (eg. lots of guys in dresses), nudity, public displays of affection, etc. things that just wouldn't be acceptable in regular life, but that become normal after a day or two there). There's a feeling of openness and there aren't many taboos except for perhaps not expressing yourself extremely enough. There's also a taboo around being negative about burning man (people react to this as if it is blasphemy). I don't think that's healthy or helpful to the event. I think it's important to be able to constructively criticize anything to drive improvement. 

Order in chaos
The thing that ties the very random artworks and workshops together is the list of 10 burning man rules, which make up the core of the burning man culture. 

1. Radical inclusion (no one left behind)

2. Gifting (bring something to share)

3. Radical self expression (while respecting others)

4. Decommodification (no sponsors, it's about experiences, not stuff)
5. Radical self reliance (bring what you need to survive)

6. Communal effort (build and do things together)

7. Leave no trace (leave no rubbish, no stuff behind)
8. Civic responsibility (the law applies)

9. Participation (get involved)

10. Immediacy 

Taking a break
You're in the middle of the desert, there's nothing here for miles and miles. You're forced to take a break from buying things all the time (except for ice and coffee, your cash is now worthless), a break from Internet and phone reception and from comfort: it's usually too hot or too cold, sometimes to dusty to breathe and see well, there aren't really showers unless you built one, you need to deal with grey water since you're not allowed to just dump it on the ground, etc. I think taking a break from these kinds of things which are very much taken for granted is one of the big strengths of the event, and helps you to appreciate them more afterwards and see them differently.

The temple + spirituality

Besides the artwork of the man which is redesigned every year, a different temple is also constructed yearly. Burning man is not full of atheists: for many people coming here is a spiritual experience. There are lots of workshops on topics such as chakras, finding your spirit animal, yoga and other 'hippy-ish' new age spiritual subjects. I find most of those things too floaty, but I found the temple more interesting. It is a quiet retreat on the playa, with an atmosphere very much like a church minus the religion. People come here to work through their personal issues, and many do so by bringing items (I saw a guitar, a wedding dress, lots of photos of people who recently died, etc) to the temple and by writing things on the temple. The temple is then burned, and many people cry as it burns, while they symbolically let go of what they left inside.

Burning things

Something I didn't realize beforehand is that the burning of the man is just one of a few mayor burns. As I mentioned before, the temple is burned each year the day after the man burns. The man burn is a crazy energetic party (symbolizing freedom from the corporate world, more or less, people go nuts during this event. The man was stuffed with so much firework that at times it was impossible to see him for the light around him). The temple burn by contrast was almost completely quiet. Quite a few people in the party crowd leave black rock city after the man burns, so the event is also more intimate. As far as I know this year five other mayor artworks were also burned throughout the week, at different times of day and with very different atmospheres and meaning attached to each of them.

I wish...
Despite the many amazing things that happened, there were a few things that were disappointing to me and could be improved. 
- For more interest in ideas and learning VS partying and getting wasted/drugged out of your mind.

Lots of people come to the event to escape (for instance from the day job they don't like but Aldi dont want to quit). This one week a year means freedom, so when you go, you go all in. I thought more people would be there to learn new things and talk about interestvoet ideas, but many people deemoed to be there to enjoy, have fun and shut their minds off. That is a shame, since there's so much creativity there. It also makes the interaction between people generally more shallow. I did have some great conversations on the playa, but they were the exception. When talking to a particular burning man veteran (people who have been for many years in a row are refered to as veterans, in this case 14 years in total) about the lack of meaningful conversation, he suggested that it may be due to "the other two rules of burning man". He called these radical self absorption and radical self aggrandisement.

- For more diversity in people 

The audience was made up of mostly young white people from California, not an accurate representation of mankind. This also limits the scope of ideas to mostly one culture, which is not as interesting as having a greater mix.

- For less material gifts

The gifting ideal in its pure form is great: bring something to share, give without expecting anything back. Many people give food or drinks or useful or DIY crafting things, but lots of other people hand out gimmicky burning man branded souvenirs. That struck me as incredibly capitalist, where you will gather what you can because it is free, not because it is useful. I find it hard to imagine anyone wearing their many burning man necklaces, pins, tshirts, bandanas, etc. once they go back home, and try to be cautious about accumulating things that I want but dont need.

All in all burning man was great. 

The best way to experience it is to get involved early on with a project, and to volunteer during the event. That gives you much more ownership and pride in what has been made.
You can find whatever you want out there. The event really is what you make it. I think that's one of the reason so many people go back each year: to create the experience you want you need to understand the idea of burning man, and that probably gets easier in time.