Paris tries LSD and understands The Iliad

During Burning Man I had a series of “Difficult Conversations” with friends and strangers, with the intent to turn elements of those conversations into a series of fictional essays. This is the first entry in that series. If you’d like to have a “Difficult Conversation,” shoot me an email: evan.cudworth [at] gmail.com

My Playa name is Paris (ugh I know) and I’ve been to Burning Man for the past three years. I’m gay, I’m single, and I teach middle school English at an elite international school in Hong Kong. This year, I tried acid for the first time and I think it’s made me a better teacher?

You see, Burning Man is a veritable Mecca for penitent narcissists like me. We join 60,000 others in a temporary Nevada city dressed in furs, feathers, and sequined military garb to dance at sunrise, declaring: “We will flagellate ourselves with extreme weather and dust, if that will grant us permission to inflict (our version of) exorbitant beauty on a suffering world.” And it’s not just the couture crowd who use the pilgrimage as a way to peer at our reflection in the Playa Styx: The Artists, the Rangers, the Guardians, the DPW, the DJs, the Bike Mechanics, the Chefs, and even the Virgin Tourists all descend on Black Rock City to have their egos stroked, then stomped. Ultimately — I think — that’s also why we burn the art: it is our license to communal vanity.

Of course, there is great humility to be gained in galvanizing the vanity of others. That’s why most of my friends’ Facebook-worthy reflections from Burning Man amount to an annoying amalgamation of “personal/emotional growth, the vibrancy of community, and beauty of temporary existence.”

However, after a week of dancing and artistic exploration, my week reaches its experiential (and experimental) zenith on Friday evening when some hot Venezuelan boy asks me to drop acid. To be honest, I’m kind of bored so I smirk while he slips the tab under my tongue. I’m not scared, but I probably should be. What do I have to lose? I leave him almost immediately and begin dancing on stage at White Ocean while dressed head-to-toe in silver-studded black leather, and suddenly I become intensely aware how snugly it fits to my toned, tanned body. This thought fills me with both intense guilt and genuine pride. This I feel/look good moment is the product of jealousy-trolling Instagram for months, dozens of hours crafting and creating my costume, as well as hundreds of hours in the gym and on the Bowen Fitness Trail.

How could this moment be superficial? Haven’t I earned feeling good about who I’ve become?

Staring up at the silver galaxy of stars, I think: “This is what I’ve always wanted. To have this type of freedom. To be this kind of person.” I’ve been running away from my rural Minnesotan upbringing my whole life. College in London, a masters at Berkeley, then a series of teaching jobs overseas. How could this moment be superficial? Haven’t I earned feeling good about who I’ve become? Twirling at dusk alongside people who had put similar hours of preparation into this moment? Is this a mating dance — or worse — a pseudo-spiritual pep rally?

Before I can get too far down that train of thought, the chemicals explode in my brain and every cliche crashes from the heavens to bind with my narcissism and form an emotion more powerful than anything I’ve ever felt: “I understand why people would start wars over love. I would mobilize armies and kill millions for this feeling.” I’ve been teaching the Iliad in an effort to provide “rich, well balanced, and enjoyable learning experiences to meet the unique needs of 14 year olds” while lecturing them blindly as to why Greek literature was so important but to be honest I had no fucking clue until this feeling.

I AM AGAMEMNON — THIS MOMENT IS MY HELEN.

Fuck, I know this sounds absolutely ridiculous, but you have to believe me — epic poetry makes more sense now.

The rest of the night I ride a rainbow through the desert, making friends and jumping art cars.

Fuck, I know this sounds absolutely ridiculous, but you have to believe me — epic poetry makes more sense now.

For a few hours I pretend to be mute and communicate purely through elaborate gestures. This is appealing to a petite woman with an elephant hat. She takes my hand and leads us to a geometric prism on the edge of deep playa to tell me a story about falling in and out of love with her cousin. I listen intently and nod and can’t help but giggle a bit because I’m thinking about Mean Girls and I break my vow of silence to go, “So, you have your cousins, and then you have your first cousins, and then you have your second…” This seems to be the permission she needs. We laugh and cry together into the darkness, my eyes dodging green lasers as they cut the horizon. I use this moment to fall momentarily out of love with myself, and clumsily peck with twirling fingers to make a note in my iPhone:

“Move Iliad further up on syllabus!!!!”