Passion seems to be the easy one. Passion is what invigorates you, what you do for the pure experience of doing it, what makes you wake up in the morning happy to be what you are.
It's cliché to say, but Burning Man changed my life. I had heard of the giant party that was Burning Man, and that was true. I had heard of the freedom and self-expression that was Burning Man, and that was true, too. What I wasn't prepared for was the way Burning Man would shake my emotional foundations. A campmate said to me, "We all bring our own baggage to Burning Man." Even as I tried to treat Burning Man as a vacation to get away from it all, it all weighed on me and made itself known.
Everything I tried not to think about and tried not to acknowledge, everything I buried so deep inside of me came bubbling to the surface in that desert. The lies I told myself to get by in the real world became transparent on the playa, prompted by nothing in particular except the radical honesty of the culture I was temporarily inhabiting. It was contagious, this honesty. I wrote letters to friends from the depths of myself, expressing my true feelings without fear of misunderstanding or poor reception. Most importantly, I was honest with myself for the first time in a long time. I confronted my fears, I admitted my desires, I reveled in my inherent self.
And on the night of the temple burn, just when I was thinking I'd figured this whole thing out, I cried. I cried without knowing why I was crying, only that there was a deep and aching sadness inside of me. I cried because I felt alone in a crowd of 50,000 friendly strangers and a dozen close friends. I cried because I felt that I wasn't supposed to cry and because I wanted nothing more than to cry. I cried for every vague moment of sadness that year that I had ignored and pushed down into a tiny little ball inside of me.
Later, after the burn, I sat and talked with two campmates who were also struggling. In a moment of clarity, after lamenting the conditions of my off-playa life, I said, "It's just that I have nothing in my life that I'm truly passionate about."
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew how true they were, and was amazed that I had ignored such a simple fact for so long. I was stuck in a rut of work and mundane socializing, with no connection to a larger picture, no impact on the world, no projects I was completing--nothing that I could say I was truly passionate about. Of course I was unhappy. I resolved then and there that when I returned to Camp Reality, I would make passion a priority and not an afterthought.
Upon returning, some of the first things I did were: to re-enroll in belly dance courses to remain passionately connected with my body. To resume my volunteer activities with the local animal shelter, to remain passionately connected with my community. To honestly address my relationships with the people closest to me, to remain passionately connected to my loved ones. And, to get a tattoo that would forever remind me that passion should be a priority, and not a last resort:
I will never again forget the importance of passion in my life. My commitment to myself is to live my life, always, with passion.
I'm very much looking forward to Burning Man 2011.
As for love, that'll have to wait for another blog post that I promise will be coming soon.
Great post! I recently wrote about the Burn too, I feel your passion. Life is too short to live without passion. There is a good quote I like, "Do what you love, and fuck the rest."
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