Larry's realized vision of community has inspired so much creativity that it's impossible to do justice to his impact on our world in a short comment.
Personally, I met my wife and many friends through his indirect action, and I've become much more creative and understanding of those around me in the process. There must be many more here with similar stories.
I didn't meet my wife there, but it was there, while sitting in Jeremy Lutes's Lily Pond[1], that my girlfriend and I decided that we wanted to start a family together. 15+ years, 3 kids, and one wedding later, we'll never know whether we'd have ended up together regardless of Burning Man, but it was that night that we knew for sure.
It's definitely a transformative experience. I guess it's the kind of thing that people get out of hallucinogens: for a little while you get to step outside of the context whose cues shape how you behave and think.
Which I'm worried may make no sense, so let me be more specific. One way to explain it: at work, you're work you. At home, you're family you. In each context, you've developed a set of behaviors and mental habits. What happens if you put those all down? Who are you now?
I happened to go on a 70-mile wilderness hike on the Pacific Crest Trail the week before going to Burning Man 1997. The experiences were wildly different: one was peace and nature and quiet; the other was a beautifully insane party filled with extraordinary art. But both had similar effects on me. I got to step outside myself and be a part of something extraordinary. I couldn't rely on my old ways of interpreting people; I had to see them anew.
I still remember flying back to Chicago on a red eye. I got into Midway airport, which at the time had all the charm of a poorly maintained bus station, and hopped on the L slightly before dawn. It was filled with sleepy commuters, all in that hazy, slightly vulnerable state we're in before we've really woken up. And I was filled with a deep love for humanity, for each one of those beautiful dreamers going about their lives. I could have hugged them.
Of course, those transformations fade. When we come back to old places, we slip back into our old selves. But not entirely. Some of the magic sticks with us.
I still remember flying back to Chicago on a red eye. I got into Midway airport, which at the time had all the charm of a poorly maintained bus station, and hopped on the L slightly before dawn. It was filled with sleepy commuters, all in that hazy, slightly vulnerable state we're in before we've really woken up. And I was filled with a deep love for humanity, for each one of those beautiful dreamers going about their lives. I could have hugged them.
I smile with so much solidarity reading this. This is one of those anecdotes that makes so much sense to someone who's been there, but probably sounds like gibberish to someone who hasn't. These are the words of someone who's been there.
One of my favorite quotes from Blood Meridian (which was published before Burning Man was a thing; I have no reason to believe it influenced Burning Man but the two are linked in my mind because of the setting and because this quote always makes me think of it)
The truth about the world, he said, is that anything is possible. Had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.
I would note that there is a difference between experiential knowledge and propositional or factual knowledge - you can read as many books about dance as you want, but none of them will tell you what it feels like to dance. In the same way, everyone sort of knows, on some level, that essentially everything about society is arbitrary. Your clothes, your food, your house, your job, everything is the result of path-dependent evolution that didn't have to end up how it did.
Ok, great, so you can know that just from using logic, but how can you feel it? Burning Man is one answer to that question. It lets you experience the "fevered dream" that is reality.
> Your clothes, your food, your house, your job, everything is the result of path-dependent evolution that didn't have to end up how it did.
For example, we have a lot of wheat in our diet because wheat was convenient to grow in certain climates, and the countries that grew it ended up colonizing half the world (I'm not a food historian, but for argument's sake this is probably correct enough).
So there is a reason why we eat a lot of wheat; there is a reason why our clothes are cut the way they are; there is a reason why our cities look the way they do. Whether we know it or not, there is a good reason for almost everything. It may be the result of path-dependent evolution, but it isn't arbitrary.
I think Burning Man errs far too much on the side of "everything about society is made up, and you can make it different". There are lots of rules about how the tapestry is woven that aren't made up. If you want to change the world you have to be aware that many (most?) things happen for a good reason. It's not just all imaginary.
A better way to look at it is, in a million different places, the odds were a million to one. We happen to be observing from the one of those place where it did happen.
In many ways, it fills roles missing in modern life. Many of the concepts it embodies -- an arduous shared experience, a festival, a mythic journey, a deeply connected and engaged community (across multiple orders of magnitude) -- are shared traits that have existed across many cultures, and can be found by the right seeker on playa. They're also traits that are increasingly being lost in atomized, globalized culture.
The fundamental unit of organization is the 'camp', which is a purpose-driven group of people who live together for the duration of the event. They come in all shapes and sizes, some dedicated to building massive, elaborate sculptures, some to delivering letters, some to running (free) bars, some to building the roads.
Regardless of purpose though, the people making up a camp have to survive together in a very extreme environment - massive temperature fluctuations, huge wind loads, ultra-fine dust, no water, 0% humidity, scorching UV, bad or no cell phone coverage, etc. This is a serious challenge that requires communal effort on difficult (and enjoyable, to some) challenges, from engineering wind resistant, quickly-deployable temporary structures, to managing hundreds of gallons of water supplies, or setting up a temporary electrical grid.
This collaborative problem solving, and on problems of survival, no less, engenders community in a powerful, likely genetic way. People form deep connections. And it also drives growth in people who are forced to adapt to environments they'd never experienced before.
That's all infrastructure though, (nominally) to support the payload of event, which is the playa. Among other things, an enormous, open air gallery, and ideal canvas for some of the most cutting edge art in the world. Sometimes literally -- due to the extensive waiver you grant when you buy the ticket, things there can be dangerous in a way you'd never experience in a corporate-controlled environment[1].
Enormous, climbable art pieces, spinning metal platforms, towering infernos, a tradition of light art that has grown all the way to the Bay Bridge. Sudden, inexplicable interactive performance art, a symphony orchestra, and probably the largest gathering of fire spinners in the world. Creating, and appreciating these pieces is the real kernel of the community. Appreciating inspires new creating. People learn to weld, to solder, to dance, to use CNC tools, to 3D design, to sew. They use skills they already have and never got to use in such a context - fixing an old truck for a mutant vehicle platform, writing a simulator for their LED code.
People pour hours of work (not to mention their love, and money) into the art and the camps supporting it. Finally after months, if not years of work driven by nothing more than a desire to see it done, everything comes together for a riotous, joyful week. People have fun. They appreciate each others art, and bask in the pride of their own successful creations. They talk shop, and commiserate the failures. They get drunk, for free, on other people's alcohol.
This is not to say that everyone's experience is like this. Lots of people have very valid bad experiences. In a population now encompassing of hundreds of thousands, it's hard to avoid. And it's certainly not for everyone. If your festival is Oktoberfest, or your community is your church, or your mythic journey is your startup, that's fine and good. But the people who have good experiences often have them like this.
There is, of course, lots of writing on this subject. Dustin Moskovitz has a fun blog post about it, and there have been several books.
=====
[1]: Maybe too dangerous - there is deep and ongoing pain in the community over the man who managed to kill himself on Burn night last year.
Well there's a group sex tent that is interesting to check out. Your best shot at getting in is being part of good looking couple though. Quite the experience to have sex surrounded by dozens of other beautiful, young couples having sex. Happens elsewhere but the Burn is your best shot.
Personally, I met my wife and many friends through his indirect action, and I've become much more creative and understanding of those around me in the process. There must be many more here with similar stories.