Max your body out – deprive it of water and sleep, send it through multi hour white outs, let silicate burn into your hands with massive camp upkeep… mental exhaustion from anticipation, prepping, planning, follow through, lovely abuse on physiological and mental levels………..
of course your body and mind will crash. It’s only natural.
That crash would perpetuate this cycle of lust in me…. and I would make my entire existence about planning, preparing, communing, partying with the crew…. and about 5 years into that I realize my life was stunted…. that I was wrapped into a concept of something so freeing, that I was actually fettered by the idea of it.
I hadn’t seen a different valley or peak or body of water….. every year I would spend all my time welding and building and prepping and doing…
and I noticed my life lost so much color and depth and actual experience.
So now… that drab complexity of greys and uniformity in the real world is altered for me. I might not go to the burn anymore, but I carry with me the energy, creativity, enthusiasm, LUST FOR LOVE… into everything I do, and I color my world with that mentality… and I draw outside the mother fucking lines… I draw that color all over and I press hard on the crayon and that wax bleeds onto the pages of my life and other peoples existences… so in new cultures or cities or experiences I always have what I learned from the Burn without being tied into the cult like fervor of jaded wanderers confused about their ennui. It’s like no one ever crashed from a trip before.
Let me assure you…. these crashes happen all the time, every day… from little lost loves to the end of a spiritual vacation with a lover.
It’s just that the stark schism between that moon like existence to the office chair caterwaul against the psyche…. it’s so unnatural a dichotomy.
So one day, I just decided…..
That energy, love, spirit for adventure and passion for human connection doesn’t belong to one week a year. It belongs to all 52. When I realized that, the Burn became totally moot to me…. and I stumble forward into oblivion with burgeoning passion in my heart and exploration at my doorstep.
It’s an amazing force.
But you let it become less important if it only exists on the playa.
Never limit yourself. It’s not just the playa or the dream of that world. It will eat you up and stunt your growth in life. Never limit yourself to one week a year, or even the 2 weeks a year people pine for from an office desk….
As Maude says,
“A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They’re just backing away from life. *Reach* out. Take a *chance*. Get *hurt* even. But play as well as you can,Go team, go! Give me an L. Give me an I. Give me a V. Give me an E. L-I-V-E. LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room.”
So… go live and love some more. Don’t wait. The Burn is so much bigger than Nevada… don’t let it control you. Control it… and