This year was my second year at burning man, and I had more time this year to reflect on the social and cultural ramifications of the event in between the shots of tequila and solar tiki drinks.
I was envisioning a not-so-distant future where the ‘burning man movement’ has continued to pick up steam and has grown in numbers. In this future, the event itself has become more of a yearly holiday for the countless members of the global community. In many ways, it already is a holiday. Eagle referred to it as ‘like Christmas’ at one point. Interesting observation.
The man itself can represent anything at all. It occurred to me that it could represent the establishment as in ‘down with the man’, or even society itself as part of the notion that you have to destroy society itself to really understand what it’s like to be human (or even animal). In the beginning the man just represented one man, ironically or not.
It’s not really so important to describe or discuss exactly what happens at Burning Man. It is interesting to see a bunch of people in a situation where they are mostly free to do what they want how they want for a week or so. There is of course still societal pressure, but it’s from the Burning Man society itself so it’s a little biased.
Once you’ve been once, it’s hard to imagine a world without it.