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Jul. 23rd, 2011 07:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anansi133I am at Critical Massive, the PNW local version of Burning Man. It's day 6 of 7, and I'm already starting to say goodbye to this year's event. Today's the first day since Monday where it's even occurred to me to log in to check my email. (Of course, there's got to be wifi... I shrug.)
I imagine the glow of mass cathexis to be more diffuse, less powerful than the real burn, maybe 2% of what a burn feels like, but that's probably not right. A more accurate scale would be logarithmic, like decibels or earthquake ratings. But definitely the weather has been much kinder than it ever is on the playa. And having grass to play on instead of compacted dust, it's a good thing.
Having a sweetie with me is kind of a first. I'm suddenly no longer jealous of all the other couples I see here. And when I overhear someone fucking in their tent, it's a knowing grin instead of an envious grimace.
For that matter, camping as part of a theme camp is also a trip. Our group offered up a burrito feed on Thursday and it went quite well. Nobody knows why our camp is named what it is, not even us. But naming the band is less important than learning the music- and I am really interested in the music we're learning.
More and more I'm thinking of actually attending Poly camp this year- I can't help but think og NCNW spring camp and how it'll be different/better/notasgoodas critical massive. So much of the character of an outdoor festival is derived from the site, and seeing how Polycamp handles that site will help me grok how our group can handle the site.
I think what makes all such events important to me, connected to that mass cathexis idea, is the thought that once 'm in the gate, I am no longer judged. (sure, the little judgments keep coming, but they are all subjective and consciously so.) It's kind of like climbing a mountain and meeting someone else at the top: already, before you open your mouth, you know you have something in common with this person, and you might not even need to talk about it. That's what it's like for me at these events, be it Wiscon, Norwescon, Burning man, PolyCamp, or New Culture Northwest.
The other day I called it, "re-calibrating normal". After coming to something like this, I hope my sense of what reality is *really like* has been expanded.
Also, life here is like a scale model of life in the default world- the same kinds of expectations and disappointments with other people, they all come up again for me, but somehow less threatening. I'm not as afraid of other human beings as I used to be. This feels really important.
I'm sort of in love with the world right now, can you tell? It's a feeling I remember most clearly from the Rainbow Gathering, the one they held near Mt Shasta in the 80's. Sometimes I despair that I will never get the hang of being human. Not right now, though. Right now it feels like I can handle it.
I imagine the glow of mass cathexis to be more diffuse, less powerful than the real burn, maybe 2% of what a burn feels like, but that's probably not right. A more accurate scale would be logarithmic, like decibels or earthquake ratings. But definitely the weather has been much kinder than it ever is on the playa. And having grass to play on instead of compacted dust, it's a good thing.
Having a sweetie with me is kind of a first. I'm suddenly no longer jealous of all the other couples I see here. And when I overhear someone fucking in their tent, it's a knowing grin instead of an envious grimace.
For that matter, camping as part of a theme camp is also a trip. Our group offered up a burrito feed on Thursday and it went quite well. Nobody knows why our camp is named what it is, not even us. But naming the band is less important than learning the music- and I am really interested in the music we're learning.
More and more I'm thinking of actually attending Poly camp this year- I can't help but think og NCNW spring camp and how it'll be different/better/notasgoodas critical massive. So much of the character of an outdoor festival is derived from the site, and seeing how Polycamp handles that site will help me grok how our group can handle the site.
I think what makes all such events important to me, connected to that mass cathexis idea, is the thought that once 'm in the gate, I am no longer judged. (sure, the little judgments keep coming, but they are all subjective and consciously so.) It's kind of like climbing a mountain and meeting someone else at the top: already, before you open your mouth, you know you have something in common with this person, and you might not even need to talk about it. That's what it's like for me at these events, be it Wiscon, Norwescon, Burning man, PolyCamp, or New Culture Northwest.
The other day I called it, "re-calibrating normal". After coming to something like this, I hope my sense of what reality is *really like* has been expanded.
Also, life here is like a scale model of life in the default world- the same kinds of expectations and disappointments with other people, they all come up again for me, but somehow less threatening. I'm not as afraid of other human beings as I used to be. This feels really important.
I'm sort of in love with the world right now, can you tell? It's a feeling I remember most clearly from the Rainbow Gathering, the one they held near Mt Shasta in the 80's. Sometimes I despair that I will never get the hang of being human. Not right now, though. Right now it feels like I can handle it.
