Does actual personal experience confuse most people who have never been to Burning Man?
Because that would fit with the sort of attitude Iām used to encountering whenever I hear BM come up in conversation.
What i do know is that I used to hold an annual camping trip for dozens of people, and the burners drove the abnormals away. Drove the normals away too. Drove the organizer away eventually.
I mean, personally, for myself only, I havenāt met every member of the John Birch Society (for example), but I long ago decided it was okay to not take them at all seriously when they talk about themselves and their noble movement, becuse that talk and selfish behavior have the strangest correlation.
But if they had a campout, you wouldnāt opine about what was done there or give your opinion about the merits of it, would you?
There is a middle ground here. People love to critisize Burning Man for being all about ārich peopleā or ātechbrosā or āBay Areaā or ādrugsā or āsex nā drugs,ā etc. but most of those criticisms come from people that really donāt know anything about the event except a few photos and a piece in a national magazine or a few blogs. Thatās what makes me twitchy and Iāll confess to it.
That isnāt making Burning Man out to be a utopia and I havenāt been again in over five years so who knows what the huge numbers are doing to it now?
I donāt understand why you think that second group is exclusively rich people. āThese people are partying in weird outfits, therefore they must be richā? Have you heard of, say, Mardi Gras?
I used to work at a gas station where one of my coworkers went to Hawaii for a week every two years. Heād save up his $7.50/hour, and get people to cover his shifts in advance, and everything was cool. Same applied to an awful lot of broke college students I knewāthey might live on ramen the rest of the year, but by God theyād put enough aside to hit Myrtle Beach every spring break.
Step it up to middle class, and itās even easier; most any low-end office worker can accumulate a week of leave in a year, and $1000 or so to spend on it, without special effort.
So where are you getting this notion that the concept of vacation is alien to all but the filthy rich?
Thatās not what Iām saying. Iām saying that āOnly rich people go to Burning Manā is demonstrably false. 80% of every thread about Burning Man is people who think that āI heard that only rich scumbags go to Burning Manā is a great yardstick, and itās frustrating. If youāre not one of those, good for you, but youāre in the minority.
See, I like this better because itās honest: weird hippies are having a big bonfire and itās weird and you donāt like it. Youāre entitled to your opinion! Just donāt pretend that your personal aesthetic preferences are based on some highfalutin moral code.
So it could be thats where a lot of this is coming from?
Also, I went to BM in 1996 on my honeymoon. Back then it was all tiny theme camps and everyone camped on their own in in wee groups. The big theme co-op camps they have now seem weird to me. I am not sure Iād like it. Can you camp far away from the event still? Like way back off the grid? Iād like that.
I can fess up to that. Mostly cause I just never think about scheduling the time off and well most of the time it would be just sitting around at home playing video games or something. Vacations cost money. I should try do better as I have to use my 4 weeks in the same calendar year now.
It would be nice to be able to do like the my coworker when I started as a sysadmin. He would save up 2 years worth and then be gone for 2 months.
Last year I took a staycation because my SO couldnāt take the whole 3 weeks off, so we did 10 days at a friends cottage and I spent the rest of the time lazing about my back yard reading and doing nothing. It. Was. Glorious. - I recommend!
Seriously man, take the time! You earned it!
Hell Iād take more time off unpaid if they let me, but they donāt. Bah.
Iām a big fan of long weekends, most of my vacation time is used for single fridays or mondays. Kind of a substitute for reducing my working hours to 80 % for a few weeks or months every year.
Yeah the last round of use up your vacation time so our books look good we were not allowed to do that.
I had been more or less doing that before when we could keep a years worth banked before it quit adding up. I would get close to the max and take a 3 or 4 day weekend or if there was a holiday pad that out even more and still have a bank for something.
this sucks. Iām lucky that my employer (and line manager) is very relaxed in this regard - I only have to negotiate vacations with the project(s) member(s) and everythingās fine.
I can understand that people find BM appealing, but it just hits all of my āI wouldnāt want to do thisā buttons. Like, every single one. Itās in the middle of the desert in summer (I donāt deal well with heat), it involves a large group of strange people (Iām not good at starting conversations, especially with strangers, and I really, really,really donāt 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 Coryās 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 didnāt.
Finally - and forgive me if Iām wrong, but this is the impression that I get - it all seems like a big crock of āFor a weekend, become who you are underneath all of your layers of self-control,ā which I reject for two reasons:
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 thatās 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 ābetter personā thing.
I donāt 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. Iām exercising my will and changing that person gradually, but I certainly donāt 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 donāt drink.
So, yeah. If other people enjoy it, then power to them for finding something that suits them, but I canāt see myself ever, given one lifetime or a dozen, making my way to Burning Man.
Yeah. I donāt think Iāve ever criticized BM, because Iāve never been, but from what Iāve read (from positive reports), it falls into the same category as Disneyworld as things I wouldnāt go to for free even if I lived next door.
But if people like it, awesome for them! I know people who would love it, just not for me.
Poor college student on a federally protected reserve thousands of miles from the nearest war is actually quite rich relative to any disposessed refugee.
Just donāt call burners poor. It sound entitled. Like most burners who-are-totally-not-a-cultists do to my ears. As they āvacationā from something 99+% of em are fully part of 51 weeks a year.
