[Dialogue] Witness

[Richard Alton]

Burning Man

Celebrating my 71st
birthday this December. You would think after all these years I would have
learned a few things and, more important, be a lot wiser.  Not sure. I guess one thing I have learned is
that there is a lot of wisdom out there in this great old world. And to act on
this insight I try to collect wisdom and jot them down in my yearly calendar… I
am not sure it makes me wise.

 

One example is my daughters
going to Burning Man (gathering of old and new hippies as one friend explained
to me to smoke a lot of pot). Well my daughters Christina and Kay had not told
me about this last part so I immediately went and googled Burning Man.
And upped popped the Burning Man principles: There is no default world; Expect more from strangers; Form your own
camp; Be part of the generosity
economy and Embrace impermanence. I wrote Christina- the older daughter- what
is this all about? She says, “you know this is like what we learned with ICA, you know the other
world” Now that caught my attention.

 

The one principle I was most
fascinated with was the one about ‘Expect
more from strangers”. It seems
Burning Man believes that people are scarred of other people, and it is their
job not to be scarred. They also recommend “go in for a hug”- that seems a little
too scary for me. Most people it appears are trying to project their appearance
of normalcy instead of celebrating their wonderful weirdness. The key seems to
be able to say “yes” to the strangeness of strangers. Your job appears to be to
expect people to be interesting.  Also you
have a right to approach any random person and have an interesting interaction.

 

So I now have these 5
principals in my calendar book. I usually try to read through these wisdom
notes regularly and try to be mindful of them through the day. ‘Expecting more
from strangers” went with me to the ICA Nepal Conference. The second day there
I tried to walk from the ICA Nepal office back to my Hotel. A course, I got
lost. I had a map but it did not seem very helpful. And then I noticed a man
walking near me who also had his map out with a great big backpack like he had
been trekking. Finally, I walked over to him and asked, “have you found where we
are?. Nope, but I think I am close” We finally figured out where we were with
the help of a policeman and we started walking together. Where are you from?: Egypt.
What do you do?: I am the Egyptian consular at the Egyptian Embassy in New Delhi and come regularly to Nepal to trek. He asked me some
questions and I told him about our El Bayad work and that I had coached
baseball in Maadi (suburbs of Cairo).
And then I asked him about the new government in Egypt. He spent about 15 minutes
trying to explain the situation in Egypt and what he thought the
future looked like. I was just startled that this just totally out of the blue
interaction had produced such an amazing interaction.

 

And then there was the actual
Nepal Conference. What a way to just maximize such weird connections?  And is not that finally what community is all
about? I guess that is what Burning Man means by Form your camp. Burning Man’s philosophy seems to suggest that
these camps are about making an impact together. They are not just for hanging
out together, but camps are where people are about something that contributes
to the larger community..this is what gives camps meaning. These camps seem to
leads us to the generosity economy;
this has to do with someone who always gives to others as a way of life.
Burning Man sees the transformative feature of their faith is the ‘gifting’ economy.
Notice how it makes your life better to give. In fact, giving away can become a
way of life for you and your people.

 

The last principle is embracing impermanence which is really
up in your face at 71 years old.  I am going
to put that one in my 2013 monthly planner for my brood screen for the year. I
know I have to embrace it… I am sure it will embrace me. 

 

Bet you that these principles
came from smoking too much pot. Probably, the same pot the Other World came
from.

 

Dick Alton, just back from
hanging out with Bill McKibben and 350.org working to divest my oil stocks…





Richard H.T. Alton 166 N. Humphrey Ave, Apt, 1N
Oak Park, IL 60302
T:1.773.344.7172
richard.alton at gmail.com

Don't let the fear of striking out hold you back 
   Babe Ruth 		 	   		  
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