BURNcast interviews Mountie Josh, a first time burner from Canada at the bar at Camp Fandango. A few weeks after the burn he shared this essay about his experiences on the playa with us:
Playa
I just spent the last week waiting for the other shoe to drop. Every person I know who’s ever been to Burning Man has described a decompression state, where “returning to the default world” as difficult as birthing in reverse. They also describe some sort of epiphany that strikes them from on high, irrevocably changing their perspectives and making their lives weirder, wilder and richer.
But no such thing has happened to me. I was working at one of my day jobs 8 hours after getting back to Toronto, and I was having no issues adjusting-- and that blue lightning bolt from the gods never struck. The trip to Burning Man, the environment, the lack of sleep, the heat, the art.. all of these things were memorable but hardly life changing.
Did I get short-changed, somehow? Did I spend so much time focusing on the event that I missed the experience?
---
A combination of poor eating, hydration and altitude sickness had me in a very odd space early on in the event. The whole thing was just so damn huge. There were people on the Playa whom I loved and adored and hoped to use as my touchstone, but in the sea of 49,000 people, the tides of the event kept us apart.
It took a monumental effort to break the rut I was in and force myself back into the event without the safeguards I’d previously been depending upon. The best I could do is wander along the Esplanade and hope that I find something or someone to make me feel at home.
There’s a cliche that kept being repeated over and over again to me: “The Playa Provides.” It’s got a cult-like mantra to it. I thought it was a bit hackneyed up until I wandered into an bar that was playing 80’s music. There were a bunch of people from Boston who were driven, smart, crazy, welcoming and understanding of where I was in my head. Also, dancing amongst them, was a woman who would become my very first playa-crush, whose smile an intensity would set the stage for the rest of the event.
I’m not sure what they put in the Kool-Aid, but I’ll have another cup please.
---
Okay. It’s not entirely true that I didn’t have life-changing experiences. After spending a few days adjusting, I ended up bonding with my neighbours and actually breaking out of my shell to make (hopefully) lasting bonds with my fellow burners. Those people made all the difference for me.
Looking on it now, it seems like a no-brainer that it’s about the people. The art is at times wonderful, but it’s the people around me that changed this trip from being at some sort of art and culture festival into a unique event.
The people weren’t all great, however. I had a few encounters with the late-entry “tourists” that came to party, and frankly I wasn’t impressed. They tended to stand out from the crowd of Playa-Denizens, and I became intrigued at how viscerally I disliked this breed of burner. For someone like me who lacked experience, I had suddenly acquired a very firm opinion about the people out there with me. What made one person acceptable and another simply unwelcome?
---
I met a woman at Orgribbar near 4:00 and C who’d been a veteran burner of over a decade. This year, she said, would be her last. I asked her why and she responded:
“Look. I’ve done this thing for a long time. At first, it was an escape, but eventually I ended up living here all the time-- even when I was at home. All my friends are burners. I go to pre-and-post burn events. I changed my career to something creative. I’ve gone from living here on the Playa 1 week a year to expanding it to the other 51 weeks. I really don’t need to come here to experience the event any more.”
---
Going back to the differences between the thunder-struck who were changed by the crucible that is Black Rock City and myself, I concluded the reason why I was spared from experiencing something similar: I live in an extended state of play already. I’m an actor, a graphic designer, a clown and a writer. I play role-playing games, video games and board games whenever I have spare time. In fact, most of my personal and professional life involves a creative outlet and the interaction with other people.
In short, I’m playing almost every waking hour I can, feeling neither childish or foolish in the middle of it all. I’ve patently refused compromising my play-time as an adult in some sort of weird attempt to be “grown-up”.
But the same can’t be said of those I was camping with, nor many of my other friends who have experienced that epiphany. Is it possible that the “Magic” of Burning Man is not just in the art there, but in the constructed altered-state of being on the Playa, which allows people to play without fear of being derided by the banal expectations of “normal” society?
For the first time since they were kids, many people are empowered by being at Burning Man to actually play freely with each other on what ever terms that they deem acceptable without fear of reprisal or censure.
---
I spent the night before and of the burn hanging around another veteran burner who was experiencing her 15th year. I was taken around the Playa, shown the sights, rode a giant neon rooster-car that played thumpy techno as it made its loop around the Esplanade. I lent her my eyes, which were fresh for the entire event, and she showed me how easy it was to gracefully move from one creative setting to the next without worrying about direction or pace.
She knew this event like I know my own neighbourhood, and through her I witnessed the strange social framework that was built up behind the scenes like a rickety scaffold whose own historical weight was the basis of its tenuous strength.
---
I was initially troubled by how judgemental I was being as the week wore on. Friday night was very busy as loads of people came in just for the weekend, and I found so many of these late attendees wanting.
On stage, I’m used to a passive audience. The risk for most performance artists ends squarely on the shoulders of the performer, with the audience simply acting as (mostly) passive witnesses to the media.
On the Playa, however, my expectations changed. When things worked best was when the “audience” was also my co-conspirator. I stopped simply creating, and began to play with the people around me, emerging myself in a kind of amorphous creative gestalt that seemed to be the real secret sauce to this experience.
Until the tourists arrived.
As the Friday came around, I found that the mood and the energy of the crowds changed. Finding people to play with became harder (but not impossible) to do, as the audience shifted from being creators back to simply consumers. Instead of bartering energy and creativity in kind, these new people simply took in the sights without adding to the event themselves-- lessening the value experience for everyone.
I felt like to a certain degree the Burning Man experience was over before the match was struck on Saturday night.
---
Everyone comes to Burning Man looking for different things, and I can’t begrudge someone who’s simply looking for a good time. I went with no expectations and no plan outside of what I brought with me and had an experience that ranged from “isolating” to “wondrous”, sometimes within the same hour-- but all of those experiences were inspired by the people there.
I plan to go back. I just wouldn’t do it the same way. Clearly, the event I’m looking for takes place a few weeks before gate opens and ends the Thursday of the event. Energy and creativity is the only currency on the Playa, and when the place is being built is when that feeling is most fresh and vibrant.
I think the secret is to get in before those with little to offer devalue the communal creative coin.
---
SIDEBAR:
I’ve been accused that I can’t enjoy myself in a pastime unless I turn it into work. It’s a fair cop. Every hobby and passion I’ve been involved with ended up with me taking a more organizational hand in it.. Every vacation I’ve taken needed some sort of project to give the days some structure.
It’s the lack relative time. A vacation needs a goal for me to measure out time against my progress.
So I went down with a pretty simple plan: Be the Canadian ideal. I love my country (warts and all) with a deep seated passion, so I worked on a small personal project in mind: I’d be Mountie-Josh whenever I could.
Every morning, I sat in front of a custom-made backdrop of a very Canadian landscape in uniform, shaved, sang the Canadian National Anthem (bilingual form), saluted the Queen and the Flag, and then went on patrol.
As I biked and hiked through the Playa, I’d stop every time I saw a Canadian Flag and “Check Up” on my country-mates. If someone on the streets called me in to their camp, or if I was stopped on the street, I’d attempt to indoctrinate them into the Canadian way of life (Universal Health-care and Gay Marriages for all). Usually, I was greeted with laughter and hugs. Always, I was asked “Aren’t you hot?”.
On a couple of occasions, I had a few people convinced I was actually a member of the RCMP on cultural exchange in Black Rock City.
The lesson I learned from this experience: People love my country they love a naive younger sibling. Also: do it bigger and more ridiculous next time.
0 comments:
Post a Comment