How do you deal?

[Hope-a-Lope]

As wonderful a thing as BM is, the reality is that it wouldn't be possible if those same people frolicking on the playa for a week didn't work hard for the rest of the year. Mutant vehicles and gifted grilled cheese don't come out of thin air. If you have a job/career that you care about, that's awesome. If you don't care about your job (or have days where you hate it, which we all do), then look at it as the means to get yourself to the playa. You'll see that it's worth it.

As for dealing with the "real world" after the burn...

On Burn night, as I was hugging my campmates goodbye, I was fighting back tears of gratitude, exhaustion, and sadness. I wasn't ready to leave, and arm in arm with my friend BamBam, I asked him "How can I possibly go back after this?"

He answered, "Just do your best to find this where you live. Then you never really have to go back, all the way."

You learn to find cool people and avoid negative assholes. You find out where the parties are and spend your free time creating outfits for them, and while enveloped in deep house, you close your eyes and you're dancing in the dust again. You volunteer with camps near your home base and learn that the harder something is, the better it'll be in the end. You see a change in you, and so do others. And you know that before you know it, August will be upon you, and you can once again let the playa give your soul a hug.

That's how I deal.

[tatonka]

I will "pine away"

[media]

[bluemiragemi]

As wonderful a thing as BM is, the reality is that it wouldn't be possible if those same people frolicking on the playa for a week didn't work hard for the rest of the year. Mutant vehicles and gifted grilled cheese don't come out of thin air. If you have a job/career that you care about, that's awesome. If you don't care about your job (or have days where you hate it, which we all do), then look at it as the means to get yourself to the playa. You'll see that it's worth it.

As for dealing with the "real world" after the burn...

On Burn night, as I was hugging my campmates goodbye, I was fighting back tears of gratitude, exhaustion, and sadness. I wasn't ready to leave, and arm in arm with my friend BamBam, I asked him "How can I possibly go back after this?"

He answered, "Just do your best to find this where you live. Then you never really have to go back, all the way."

You learn to find cool people and avoid negative assholes. You find out where the parties are and spend your free time creating outfits for them, and while enveloped in deep house, you close your eyes and you're dancing in the dust again. You volunteer with camps near your home base and learn that the harder something is, the better it'll be in the end. You see a change in you, and so do others. And you know that before you know it, August will be upon you, and you can once again let the playa give your soul a hug.

That's how I deal.

Love this. Thank you <3

[kittyrodriguez]

Join your Burning Man Regional group. Burners all over the world are doing burner-y things everyday. They aren't necessarily big things, but they come together as a community. For example, my closest regional is Burning Flipside in Austin, TX. I am going to that in May. So I got on their email list. They have something going on all the time. They get together to craft sometimes, like decorating mint tins for cigarette butts.

Find a group of people that share your interests. And through them, you will find new people and new interests. Even the dullest places have wonderful art going on. You just have to find it. Or create it.

Even better, involve the people in your default life. Get the people at your work to come together for something fun or artistic or productive. Then you have created something wonderful and have spread the burner ethos.

[nixiebunny]

My life has become more like the playa.

I currently volunteer with a high school FIRST robotics team. We work in a hackerspace, having just built an amazing 100 lb. robot. We go to competitions that are much like Burning Man, in that everyone there helps everyone else in spite of the fact that some teams will get a trophy and others won't. They shake it up by ensuring that you never know who your partners will be until the end, so it pays to be good to everyone.

It also helps if you can find a way to earn a living doing something spiritual, or at least benign. Not advertising or making things for the military. I make telescopes work for astronomers, and I make wacky wristwatches for nerds. Both of these are pursuits that I'm not ashamed to do.

Oh, and... be weird.

[BBadger]

Man, what's the point of a robot if it isn't for wreaking destruction?

smp1.gif

[moonrise]

To the OP... Don't get stuck in the rat race...you're basically stuck in THAT rut, UGH!

BBadger, Vulture Chow, Hope-a-lope and everyone else gave you goooooood advice! FWIW, I was stuck in THAT rut, but mainly due to health issues (I work fulltime with chronic back pain and did what I could but found I needed to break my creative rut cycle, too.) I'm now slowly recovering BUT I'll always be better off for breaking out of my rut and returning to the burn now and then did the trick for me.

Eplaya helps, it's an interesting community, that's for sure!

Try to find a regional and join BEFIRE your first burn. I have a strong feeling you're going to need some serious decompression...do yourself a favor and join a regional now, pre-burn...trust me!

Oh, and as someone else said, drugs do help...herbal meds work wonders, but only in moderation

[Mojojita]

I had a lady try to literally "call me out" at a party early this year. (I was horrified) She was both tipsy and stupid - a near fatal combination at times. One of my friends, who has never been to the playa, said, "Oh my God - does she know she was fucking with a BURNER?" I laughed until my sides hurt.

A comical sense of the artistic absurd is a light in the dark - the best way I can think of to balance the mundane and unimaginative.