city outskirts, nightfall

My tour of the deep playa concluded, I sought a place to unwind, sit down, and unpack my thoughts. I crossed the busy Esplanade and turned down a radial street, looking for an inviting lounge.

The nearest camp I stumbled into was winding down their DJ set—just a half-dozen people exchanged lazy, sweaty hugs and murmured goodbyes. I watched them drift away in different directions while I slunk to a fuzzy sofa, lit by a soft ring of LED lights. Another night settled over the Black Rock Desert and a chill drifted into the basin, so the cozy sofa seemed especially inviting. The only thing left in this camp was the noisy thrumming of a diesel generator, and the recursive thoughts of my own anxious mind.

And so, I wondered internally:

What is the point of all this?

Was this the right place to bring myself?

Does it even matter?

My trite explanation of Burning Man is that it’s a yearly convergence of partygoers in a city built for a single week in August and the big thrill is to watch it all burn to nothing. While the sound camps blast dance music at full volume around the clock, monuments and memorials are quietly filling The Temple. For a different subset of Burners, this festival is ritual—a pilgrimage and a deeply shared experience with like-minded others building something out of nothing, then reducing it to ash and cinder.

The most experienced Burners come prepared. They’ve built their camps year by year, layer by layer, iteration by iteration. Through their experiences of the previous year’s suffering, they’ve made their camps nicer by a degree each time. This is what made Burning Man glow for me—the admiration of the seasoned folks who figured out a way to survive and thrive and make some weird, immersive art out here in a harsh desert environment.

I’m pulled from my thoughts by two strangers who wandered into the empty dancefloor, each draped in faux fur and those steezy Kanye shades. They approached me, laughing and electric, where I was laid down on my glowing fuzzy couch. This was a public space, after all, and I’m reminded that anyone can show up and be part of the scene. I sat up and shifted gears to meet their energy, offering them a fond hello. They asked about my night. I acted coy to distance them from my true feelings of un-belonging and existential misery, so I pivoted and asked them a question.

“What’s your nugget of playa wisdom for a newbie like me?” I inquired.

“Always know where the bathrooms are,” one of them said with a giggle.

“Classic.” I didn’t know what else to say.

They laughed it off and scuffled through all the soft playa piles, kicking through mounds of chalky white dancefloor dust, frolicing away as they vanished into the night together.

. . .

I’ve been on edge for days—like a dachshund at a fireworks show. I know I’m supposed to be part of this big inclusive human community out here, but I’m just not feeling it. I know the Ten Principles and I tried to live them: I’ve helped build my camp, I worked my shifts sober, and I’ve actually found a lot of joy in picking up other people’s trash—Leaving No Trace has been the most appealing aspect of this place.

The build-week city has vanished and what has emerged is a glowing, chaotic din. And so here I am, left alone in this random dance camp, still wondering what I’m trying to prove—and to whom. There’s no audience here, so why the need for any performance?

“No expectations.” That was the mantra from the start.

It was time for me to buck up. These remaining days in the desert were mine to live, so it was time I went and lived them, as myself.

The Grand Victorian, late night

I don’t remember exactly how I got there. Some delirious midnight wandering—a half-conscious orbit through the radial streets in search of something satisfying. Which is what precisely drew me in: An unattended roaring fire. The hypnotic pull of the warm firelight burning outside this mysterious, dark, heavy tent was enough to pique my curiosity and change my course. Without hesitation, I followed my instinct and ducked underneath the tent flap. From there I stepped straight into a surreal dream.

The camp’s interior felt impossibly spacious—a floor carpeted with tasseled rugs and surroundings lit by flickering candelabras. A TARDIS of a tent: bigger on the inside, as if space itself had dilated to make room for all this. An air of elegance permeated the place, and a chalkboard sign with a delicate and ornate frame proclaimed the name: The Grand Victorian.

The air was perfumed with bergamot, clove, and woodsmoke. Lace runners crisscrossed the room. Copper teapots and carafes glinted in the candlelight. The noise of the outside world—the music, the whooping, the throbbing bass—subdued to a hush. It was like I had ventured into a little pocket universe, a theme camp from another century. Through my bewilderment, I caught the attention of a bright-eyed woman in a ballroom gown the color of midnight.

“Ah-ha!” she said with a theatrical flourish. “We have a guest. One of many tonight, it seems!” Her voice rang through the tent, clear as a bell, as she swept over to me. 

The tent was full of commotion as The Hostess slipped her arm around mine, gloved fingers resting lightly on my wrist. She was buoyant and graceful, with eyeliner like exotic calligraphy. Every inch of her radiated both authority and authenticity.

“And you are...?” she prompted me, expectantly.

Ah ha. A name. A title. A quick description. I hesitated.

“Let’s stick with what you said—One of Many,” I said. “It seems fitting.”

“One of Many!” she declared with delight. “We’ve been expecting you.” Heads turned to watch us.

Before I could reply, The Hostess whisked me across the floor and navigated us through the maze of clustered guests sitting around each table, humming in soft conversation. The entire space simmered with overlapping dialogue, like a dozen novels being written at once.

The vibe of this place was half-burlesque, half-steampunk. Many of the guests were in costume: velvet and lace, harlequin masks and monocles, faux-fur capes and feathered hats. Of course, many others were in their dusty and humble playa “street clothes”—hoodies, sweatpants, jean shorts.

She deposited me at a low tea table surrounded by mismatched cushions. A silver tray held an oversized teapot. China cups were already set, each glowing warm in the soothing candlelight.

“You’ll sit here,” The Hostess said, guiding me to a chair set between two women.

“I’m Robin,” said the one on my left—freckled, desert-tanned, with sunbright-blue eyes.

“I’m Wren,” said the other, long hair cascading over a white hoodie that looked clean and impossibly soft.

“Hello, birds,” I chirped. “I’m One of Many.”

They laughed—a small, honest giggle from both.

The Hostess dipped her chin in a satisfied nod and whirled away, off to collect another guest and leave us to our conversation over tea.

I sat down and Robin poured it—jasmine. The steam curled up between the three of us, scented and soft, the only humidity in the dry desert night.

Around our table, the room swelled with chatter and the occasional clink of porcelain cup on saucer. Every other person here felt like a main character—fully drawn out and cast convincingly. I felt it in my gut: this moment in the tea lounge didn’t belong to just me, it belonged to everyone. Even though it was a loose assemblage of strangers, it felt like a real community. 

It’s a rare phenomenon: to be fully absorbed by a space, not as a visitor or customer, but as an integral part of its social fabric. Sociologists call them ‘third places’—spaces that exist outside the boundaries of home and work. Places where community can form organically, usually gathered around a common interest. From cafés to comic shops to public plazas, these environments thrive when people aren’t just served like drive-thru customers, but instead integrated into them. When you’re a regular at these sorts of places, you become a node in the network, a known value, and integral to curating the atmosphere of the place itself.

I leaned in to chat with the guests at my table. We spoke quietly, conspiratorially, about the pets we’d loved and lost. About the places we’ve been that hold the most meaning to us. About the strange feeling of meeting someone new who somehow also feels so, so familiar (do the Germans have a word for this? Let me know if you know). 

For the first time in a long while—I felt seen and heard here. Nourished by a kind of attention that asked nothing of me but my presence. The attention shared was nothing grandiose, but it was real, close, and intimate.

At the far end of the tent, the Hostess caught my eye and raised her teacup. She mouthed the words silently, with great articulation: “Welcome home.” 

I smirked, because that dumb playa mantra landed on me when I least expected it to. Deeply soothed and thrilled with what I had found tonight, I relaxed with the birds, drank deeply, and spilled tea with them for many gleeful hours.

The Lamp Lounge, midday

The city doesn’t really move much during the heat of the day. Every morning the sun comes up like a punishment, a reminder to everyone who partied all night that sleep is a gift often squandered. 

I was hunkered in the Box Camp shade structure, trying to clean some of the embedded playa filth off me, when I overheard the camp’s administrators gathered in conversation. They discussed what it is that makes this city run.

First, there’s The Org—Burning Man LLC., aka BMorg, aka “The Borg,” as an unironic nickname—the non-profit which sells the tickets, trucks in the water, staffs the commissary, rents the banks of portos, and, most importantly, obtains the multi-million dollar special use permit from the Bureau of Land Management. But The Org doesn’t build the city, not really. That’s outsourced to the volunteers: the builders, the artists. The Rangers, Temple Crew, Lamplighters, Gate Perimeter & Exodus (GPE), Department of Public Works (DPW), Department of Mutant Vehicles (DMV)—all these acronyms are limbs of The Org’s living organism. The individual cells of those appendages are made up of the folks with the discipline and devotion to create this place year after year after year—they are the volunteers who do the actual city building.

The bulk of them trade their unpaid labor for a discounted or gifted ticket, so perhaps their call to volunteer is an excuse for them to get into the desert and party for a week or two. But, it would seem that some show up and grind simply because they love the labor of it.

In short: The Man burns each year because a weird blend of volunteer sweat merges with a non-profit’s corporate logistics.

The volunteer wheels have enough self-propelling grease in them to keep the whole engine turning. Even if the Org secured their precious permit to close off a few square miles of playa for another year, even if the demand for tickets drove the price up to $5,000 each, this place wouldn’t exist if it were not for the extremely dedicated individuals volunteering their time and expertise to haul themselves and the city-building materials out here.

. . .

“No Spectators” was a motto from the early years of the festival and part of the core ethos of Burning Man—no attendee is separate from the event; everyone is a participant in this living human museum. 

But, the longer I lingered in these Org staff camps, and the longer I watched what this city became, the more the pattern became clear: Twenty percent of the people are doing eighty percent of the work. A spin on The Pareto Principle, it’s one more principle to add to The Ten Principles that guide this place. 

It’s easy to say you’ve “contributed” because you brought an extra tub of wet wipes to share. Anyone can have stickers printed and logo-branded merch to be given away as “gifts”. A small-art exhibit could simply be you standing on a street intersection giving away hugs—that is indeed a meaningful contribution.

But when shit really needs to get done—when the generator falls apart, when a shade rips, or the bar needs ice—it’s one of the members of the Twenty Percent to show up.  These are the ‘Working Man’ archetypes. I’ve heard the occasional grumble from these types, that they come out here every single year and still haven’t ever been to Burning Man (because they’re too busy at Working Man).

These people are functioning at a completely different level than the oft-derided “tourist” to this event, and most of them seem to want it this way. They relish being part of the skeleton crew that keeps this entire ship afloat. This barren desert is now home to 80,000 people! And by some Pareto math, sixteen-thousand are doing the work so sixty-four thousand can fuck around and enjoy it. 

To be fair, that doesn’t really seem like a bad return if that’s what it takes for a society to be a functional one.

So, “communal effort”, as a slogan, sounds noble in the handbook for the tourists and sightseers pouring in. Help your village. Share with your neighbors. It’s a decent mindset to have in any city.

The real effort to build a whole city out here is grueling and tedious. It’s setting up the banks of portos and pumping them out each day. (Side note: if you throw, say, an empty beer can into a porta potty at Burning Man, IT IS REMOVED BY HAND. So don’t fucking do it, you disgusting troglodytes.) It might mean doing the cooking for your camp or doing the dishes or building a greywater station so you can wash dishes in the first place. It’s securing the rigging of your camp’s shade so it doesn’t blow to Utah. It’s hand-painting signage for your dinky neighborhood bar to generate some foot traffic from the public street, surveyed and built by the volunteers. In the end, it’s creating something that improves the quality of the community. It’s hard for me not to speculate that if everybody dropped what they were currently doing and did a tiny bit more of *that*, the world would be a better place.

From what I can tell, the real difference between participant and mere spectator out here is one thing: Effort. 

The reward for your contribution is multiplied by the effort you poured into it. The individual efforts of many are what built this community, and at times it might be mundane or thankless, but it is done anyway, and it is done year after year because the reward isn’t recognition—it’s creating something that ripples outward and impacts many others.

. . .

I’m grinding away in a notebook, alone in the Lounge, wrestling this thought when someone I’ve never seen before peeked their head in.

“Is your bar open?” They asked.

I set down my pencil and looked up to meet their hopeful, expectant gaze. 

The camp is supposed to host a happy hour in something like 4 hours, but until then, the bar is deserted. In this case, I was the defacto one to show up, and I decided to commit to the call to action.  

“Sure it is,” I replied, matter-of-factly. Of course. Why not? I wheeled off my stool and around the bar to set up on the bartender's side.

“Who’s rolling into the Lounge for a drink at noon?” I asked.

He grunted. “I’m Keith, and I don’t want to be in The Black Hole right now.”

“Ah.” I toned down my attitude as it was clear that he was not in the mood for it. The bar he mentioned is a notoriously punk-rock staff-only place adjacent to our quirky staff-only place. From what I could discern about that spot, if you weren’t wearing a staff lanyard, black denim and a chip on your shoulder, you were not welcome in The Black Hole.

“I just finished a shift, and, man, this year is kicking my ass.” Keith said.

“You’re with GPE?” I asked, busying myself behind the bar, happy to play the bartender part.

“Yep. Gate, Perimeter, and Exodus—we do it all,” he lamented while I pulled out a couple of leftover booze bottles from the communal stash of liquor.

“We have dusty gin and dusty tequila.” I told him.

“I’ll take the second one.” He handed me a tin mug with a raccoon etched on it.

“It’s my second year out here, and it’s great, and I love it...” he paused to consider the thought, “but I fucking hate it.”

I took his cup in hand and nodded glacially slowly. I knew exactly what he meant. The dissonance inherent in the very existence of this event was becoming more and more obvious. Maybe the combination of survivalist campers with the hardest of party animals has created a mutant counter-culture; too pissed off—and rightly so—with the way things are in the mainstream default world, too turnt up to change it.

I wiped off the thick layer of dust covering the bar freezer before opening it up and—whispering a quiet prayer of gratitude for the unseen laborers who hauled it here—pulled a half-scoop ration of ice.

“I’ve been out here for almost two weeks, but it feels like it’s been a month,” he continued. I could only nod and do my pretend job as a pretend bartender. I returned his cup with the precious ice floating in a generous pour of tequila. He pulled a sip from his cup and heaved a sigh.

I poured myself a splash of gin and tried to make light. “Burning Man? More like... Burn Out, Man.” He seemed unphased by my corniness. 

“This place would be great,” he joked, “if it weren’t for all these people trying to get in.”

I took a sip of desert-temperature gin from my sediment-filled mug and gritted my teeth. A sound-camp rolled by, a literal land yacht, just outside the front of the Lounge. Woo-girls and party-boys danced on the deck like thrall, twisted on whatever party drug that gave them fuel to function in the noonday sun.

I’m left with more disillusionment, more disappointment, and more than enough sand in my vile drink.

It takes a village to raise a child, they say, but ye gods—what child are we raising here?