ZDBlue, aka The Dean, has published an interesting blog post called “The Dissolution of Normal”. He says that “normal” is an artificial construct – something I have always agreed with. And being at Burning Man helps you feel that no matter how freaky you are, you’re not the biggest freak out there – I also agree, although living in San Francisco provides this feeling also.
You can read The Dean’s piece in it’s entirety here
…I love Burners on the playa, amazing creatures who exude love and light and snark all at the same time. A glorious cacophony of colorful freaks who will give until it hurts, take care of those who sometimes don’t deserve it and teach virgins the ways of the dust. Burners contain a higher than imaginable number of insane geniuses, spectacular artists, and folks who create and burn in ways I never thought possible nor practicable. A place and a people who can eat the focus of your life so intently for a week that you blissfully forget the other life you had mere days before.
…The thing that I find most amazing about Burning Man however is not the art, the insanity, the relaxation or even thePlaya Magic. No what I love the most is something I call the dissolution of normal. You see I think one of the problems we all face in the default world is that we have been fed the idea that there is something called normal. Given that the actual reality of normal is nothing but an artifice of statistics, we all, in so many ways are not normal. We constantly find ourselves falling above or below the line, not normal and conventional wisdom tells us normal good, not normal freak. This paints freak in a negative connotation which I refuse to accept, some of us have found ways to embrace our inner and outer freaks even in the default world. What did this for me was the dissolution of normal.
At Burning Man, stop wherever you are, slowly rotate 360 degrees, carefully take in the crowd around you and I promise you, within that view, you are not the biggest freak, never. Do it every day, five times a day, you will never be the biggest freak and if you are, find me because I want to know you and I’m sure as hell buying. This realization is incredibly freeing and truly allows you to let your freak flag fly. This is why I love Burning Man because if you embrace it, merge with it, normal dissolves and the real you can emerge, is accepted by the community and if you’re lucky you can carry the real you back into the default world.
And that, my friends, is the whole point of the thing. Rather than “go to Burning Man and be someone else for a week”, you go to Burning Man and find a whole community, a whole city there who will embrace you being yourself. Just don’t wear jeans and a Raiders t-shirt, or you’ll quickly learn the barriers to radical inclusion!