Burn Gloriously

Just saw this video. After the Dancetrodrama the last couple of days, it's wonderful and fills me with the need for the dust.

It's got some excellent advice in its narration as well, which is actually from a commencement speech from Jim Carrey.

"To find real peace, you have to let the armor go.
Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world.
Don't let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form. 
Risk being seen in all of your glory."

Yes.

Burn Gloriously - A Black Rock City Contribution from Sights and Sounds Media House on Vimeo.

Videos like this remind me that I love Burning Man, and that the drama and venom people spew online about it has very little to do with what it's like to be there, and what the event is all about.

I'll tell you a story. It's a true one.**

Once, there was a young boy named Robert. He loved dinosaurs and would stomp around the yard all day pretending to be a T-rex. *stomp roar roar stomp stomp* People knew him and were afraid, because, after all, he was a T-rex!

Then one day, his father said to him, "Son, you're 17 years old now. It's time to stop being a dinosaur and go make something of yourself."

"Ok," thought Robert to himself, "I'll go to college, get a job, make some money, and then go back to being a dinosaur."

You know what happened though? Somewhere along the way, Robert started fitting in. Whether it was college, or career or family, suddenly he was just another guy, invisible. He certainly wasn't a dinosaur, stomping around and terrifying the passers-by. 

And worse, he eventually realized that he forgot how to be a dinosaur. That part of him was lost, or at least pushed so far down inside that the best he could do was mewl a bit, not let loose the kind of terrifying roar it takes to call yourself a proper Tyrannosaurus Rex.

What's the moral of the story? Don't lose your inner dinosaur, right?  Or put another way, 

"Risk being seen in all your glory."

Photo: Seth Bunting (also made the video)

Myself, I'm more of a dragon guy than a dinosaur guy, and after a particularly hard and stressful period at work a number of years ago, culminating in having to sell (for pennies on the dollar) the company I was running and had co-founded, I felt like I had lost my dragon. I wasn't me any more. All I had done for the previous few years was work.

 Up until starting that company, I had taken a fair amount of pride in being, publicly and privately, whoever the hell I wanted to be. But I raised a bunch of money and the pressures of work and investors really wore me down. Had things been going well, it likely would have been a different story but a couple years of feeling impending doom will get to you, especially when it's your job to remain cheerfully optimistic to inspire the troops.

I was not really familiar with Burning Man at that point, but nonetheless, at the invitation of a friend, three weeks later I was at BM for the first time. It was...god, I don't even know how to describe it. It was every motherfucking thing I needed in my life right about then. I'm getting a little teary just remembering the feeling of freedom and sheer joy that first time out there. 

By the time I came back to reality, my inner dragon was back, and I got my first tattoo to commemorate it (of a simple little dragon). 

First time on playa.

Burning Man helped me get my dragon back, and helped me remember to stop giving so many fucks about what people think of me, because on the playa the possibility space of how you can express yourself without harsh judgment by those around you is so much greater than in most of the rest of the world. 

That remains one of my favorite things about Burning Man too. I'm an outgoing introvert generally but at Burning Man I turn into a raging extrovert, and it's fantastic. It's made me a more social person in general, even if I'm not the same extrovert in the default world as I am on the playa. There, I let my metaphorical dragon take wing and risk being seen in all my scaly glory!

I hope you do too, because it's the best way to Burn.


The following people approve of this message:

** Not a true story. Adapted from the movie Stepbrothers, actually. The bits about me are true though.