After Burning Man

There are a lot of hard truths about Burning Man, from what happened on the playa stays on the playa to there are no friends on Monday. But here are three that I thought were particularly important to remind you as you return back to the default world.

You have been told this a hundred times by now, but it is true. Insights of clarity in the emptiness of the playa don’t always bode well for you once you are back home with your family, friends, co-workers, and your day-to-day life. We’ve all heard the horror stories of the burners who have broken off relationships, quit jobs, and burnt bridges upon their return, only to realize to their sorrow that perhaps they acted a bit too quickly, harshly, or irrationally. Yes, perhaps such acts were warranted and in the long run might have been the right thing to do. But there is no timeline that says by the Saturday after the man burns you have to have changed your life. You can give it a month… or six. Change will always be possible, just wait until the cracks in your feet heal up.

We get it, we really do. You had an amazing time on the playa, the inner-you was finally released and you aren’t sure if you want (or even can) shove yourself back into the toothpaste tube of the old you. But that feeling you get when you realize that no one truly understands you and what you went through is correct. You are now the moop. What you do about it will be something that you’ll wrestle with for the next 360 days or so until the man next burns. The Burning Man experience doesn’t end once you leave the playa. That’s when it begins. Now you get to decide how much of the real you do you wish to share with the rest of us.

If your Burning Man experience taught you anything, it was hopefully to not have any expectations on an experience. The more tabla rasa you can be going into something, the better. This was true on the playa, but it is also a great way to live your life. Expectations — of an event, someone else, or yourself — are what cause the greatest disappointments in life. An expectation is a bar you have set for something prior to your having experienced that thing. So, consequently, your focus during any experience will be on whether or not your measure was reached and not so much the experience itself. You need to reverse that, and let the experience speak for itself. It is what it is, not what you think/want/hope/fear/wish it to be.

So welcome back. And remember, if anyone asks how your burn went, just tell them: