Burning Man This Year: Afterburn

Well that about wraps up the Burning Man experience for me this year. As I mentioned,  after I got back to Reno I spent an entire week recovering at the Best Western by the airport.

It was quite a rough transition back at first---I had to wait four hours at the Reno airport for my hotel room to be available. A big clusterflop, as they say, and by the time I got into my room, I'd been up for way over twenty four hours, with only a little dozing on the bus trip.

Last year the Afterburn lasted for months, maybe the whole year. In a way, it has done the same this year, although in a different way.

During my Reno stay, I spent a lot of my free time thinking of things I wanted to do different for next year. It may seem like this is jumping the gun, but I've learned that the Afterburn is the best time to capture all these thoughts, and make a plan based on them, so that you can get out your notes in the Spring and remember all the things you want to do, with plenty of time to do them.

Along that lines, I've decided to become an expert in the construction of geodesic dome structures, something I found fascinating as a kid, but ditched along the way, because, as I told a friend recently, "it was too dorky." I'm way past that now.

Also maybe I'll become knowledgeable about portable swamp coolers. That's right up my alley too, and Okki struggled to get his design to work for his hexayurt this year.

Our camp talked about more ambitious plans too---perhaps an art car. Along those lines, I've already contacted a friend of mine who is both a handy mechanic and metal sculptor, about possibly building something like this for us, and delivering it to Black Rock City.

Then there is all the other stuff, the kind of warped vision of life, society, and reality that Burning Man leaves you with, after you go back to the Default World.

Okki is right about me---I'm not very friendly sometimes. I tend to growl at people. He scolds me for being so stand-offish. But I'm truly trying to turn over a new leaf, that way.

One way I already see the world differently this time around is whenever I'm at a coffee shop, or a restaurant, or other service establishment, ordering food or something like that. The wisdom of the Default World would have us believe that the person behind the counter does what they do, provides the conveniences they do for you, for one reason only---money.

Well, of course that's true on one level. Without being paid, very few people would show up to do those jobs at those businesses, if they were not getting a paycheck or tips.

But Burning Man teaches you that human beings often have a need to serve each other some how, to give things to each other. Our cash-is-everything economic wisdom almost seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy at that point.

So I've resolved to treat all people I meet, across a counter or whatever, as if they are doing it for free, like they would at Burning Man. Or least I'll try using that model for a while, even though I know it's not actually true. It makes me feel slightly less cynical right off the bat.

Until next year...