How Does It Feel To Burn?

I’m full. Overfull, in fact… I feel as if I contain every emotion that it’s possible to feel, all at the same time. I’ve spent a lot of the last day or so in a free hotel room, writing and journaling and moving with some concentration to make some kind of relative sense out of everything that’s happening, has happened, and is about to happen.

You know you’re a burner if…

• You start planning for Burning Man during Exodus
• The day tickets go on sale, you’re on the website repeatedly clicking “refresh” until sales opens
• You have a little vial of playa dust hung around your neck (as if you didn’t have enough of it stashed in film canisters already)
• Every time someone says “fire” or “dust” your eyes go out of focus and you sigh
• Every time someone tells you what time it is your eyes go out of focus, you sigh and mentally calculate how long it will take you to bike back to your camp from there
• You look on the web for photos taken at Burning Man hoping you’ll see a picture either of yourself or that boy/girl/ram/pixie with whom you missed a playa date
• Blinking fairy lights make you think of Burning Man before you think “Christmas”
• Your non-burner friends begin to slap you when you start telling a Burning Man story
• You’re reading this list
• You spend some time making a list like this

Burning Man 2010, part I: Principles

What is Burning Man all about…?

What if we all practice Radical Self-Reliance?

Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources. Participants are expected to provide for their own food, water, clothing, shelter and other needs during the week in the desert. What you pack-in, you are expected to pack-out.

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What if we all practice Radical Inclusion?

Everyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community. Participants are obliged to find a place for others who wish honestly to participate.

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What if we all hold Gifting to be the highest form of sharing?

Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift-giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value. You may be offered a gift of anything by anyone at any time, and likewise may you gift anything.

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What if we all practice Decommodification?

In order to preserve the spirit of Gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are un-mediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.

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What if Radical Self-Expression is encouraged?

Radical Self-Expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content; It is offered and shared as a gift to others.
In this spirit, the giver is expected to respect the rights and liberties of the recipients.

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What if we all help in the Communal Effort?

Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.

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What if we all live up to our Civic Responsibility?

We value civil society. Community members who organise events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavour to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws.

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What if we all Leave No Trace?

Our community respects and aims for a symbiotic relationship with the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavour, wherever possible, to steward and leave places in a better state than we found them.

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What if we all Participate?

Burning Man is about participation, not simply attendance. Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work in their own capacity. Everyone is invited to play wherever they find space. We make the world work through actions that open the heart.

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What if you didn’t hesitate? Immediacy.

Immediate and spontaneous experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the realities and perceptions of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea or imagining can substitute this experience.

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Sound good? See you in 2011.