Company that pampers rich people at Burning Man won't give up

boing
99

I can understand that people find BM appealing, but it just hits all of my “I wouldn’t want to do this” buttons. Like, every single one. It’s in the middle of the desert in summer (I don’t deal well with heat), it involves a large group of strange people (I’m not good at starting conversations, especially with strangers, and I really, really, really don’t like people touching me), it sounds loud, and dusty, and it sounds like they expect everyone who comes to contribute something, and I have no idea whatsoever what I would contribute.

This is all from Cory’s descriptions in Homeland and The Man Who Sold the Moon, which all were from characters enjoying themselves, which should have painted Burning Man in a flattering light, but really didn’t.

Finally - and forgive me if I’m wrong, but this is the impression that I get - it all seems like a big crock of “For a weekend, become who you are underneath all of your layers of self-control,” which I reject for two reasons:

  1. I believe that I am all of my layers of self-control. I am the voice that decides. Sometimes, that voice decides not to override the desires coming from below, instead of enforcing its will, but that’s still a decision. Also, since the brain is not set in stone, we become what we do, so the more I exercise my will to become a better person, the more the layers underneath that will align to the whole “better person” thing.

  2. I don’t like the stuff underneath all of the levels of self-control. That guy is a chocolate-obsessed, lazy, paranoid, dumb, panicky animal which reacts to social (and especially any potentially romantic) situations as if I were being stalked by a lion on the savannah. I’m exercising my will and changing that person gradually, but I certainly don’t want to let him out and give myself excuses to fall back into old habits for a weekend. This is one of many reasons that I don’t drink.

So, yeah. If other people enjoy it, then power to them for finding something that suits them, but I can’t see myself ever, given one lifetime or a dozen, making my way to Burning Man.

8 Likes