Up until fairly recently, I’d never heard of the phenomenon known as Burning Man.
I learned of it through much discussion amongst some of my friends on Friendfeed.
Last night, was the the main event, the burring of “The Man”.
I happened to come across a Friendfeed post that said the event was streaming live, so I watched and participated in a chat while watching “the man” burn.
The among the chatters were a few of us who found the whole thing a bit absurd and we couldn’t help but say so.
There were also those (as one would expect) in the chat who felt quite the opposite and they included a few past participants.
I’ve been trying to grasp this Burning Man phenomena for the past week or so. A few days ago I came across the Burning Man website. It’s a remarkable site. It’s very thorough and tells you basically everything you’d ever want to know about the event but were afraid to ask.
On my first visit I only glanced at it and came across this on the “What is Burning Man”? page.:
Trying to explain what Burning Man is to someone who has never been to the event is a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks like to someone who is blind.
My first thought was, gee how helpful. This thing sounded weird to me at first and after reading that my opinion was reinforced.
To make a long story short, after participating in yesterdays chat I decided to go back to the site and take a closer look.
It’s actually quite fascinating. I must have been on it for 2 hours.
One thing I found rather interesting is how they go out of their way to discourage illegal activities (specifically drug use).
My first thought was, I guess they had to say that because in fact that has comprised much of the weekleong event.
Afterwards, I Googled Burning Man (both on the regular Google site and Google News).
After following several of the links it became clear that sex, drugs and rock & roll (and some electronica) were much of what this event was about (oh and pubic nudity as well).
During yesterdays chat, someone suggested that this was like a 2009 version of Woodstock. After reading more about it on the various other sites I’d found via Google, I concluded the same thing.
Now the participants will tell you that it’s much more than that. Many consider it a highly spiritual experience (notably the main event and the burring of a temple the following night.
To me that all seems like a 21st century version of a commune filled with hippies (and I had good fun mocking that). But as I always say: whatever floats your boat.
Much of what I’ve read about the event just sounds downright miserable. You’re out in the middle of nowhere. The weather can be very hot (it is a desert after all) or just the opposite (and there are frequent dust storms).
Sounds like a fun place to spend outdoors eh? No thank you.
I’ll take my sex, drugs and rock and roll in a much more comfortable and less public setting, thank you very much.
As for the spiritual aspect? Whatever….
Oh and one more thought: a lot of wood is used to build both “the man” and the temple that are both destined from the getgo to become a pile of embers. For a bunch of modern-day hippies this seems a bit odd. Aren’t hippies typically tree-huggers as well?
Think of what Habitat For Humanity could have done with all that wood.
No comments:
Post a Comment