One attendee looks back at the challenges of Burning Man 2015 and the difficult lessons he learned. His story may help you with any hardships you might face during your burn.  

I was sitting in an RV on Saturday morning at Burning Man with a friend I hadn’t seen since high school. His eyes were red, his voice strained and he had the look of someone very ready to pack up and go home. “No one told me it would be this hard,” he said, “I was prepared for the dust and the work but I wasn’t prepared for this.”

Now that we’ve had a week to decompress, it’s starting to come out that a lot of people had a really difficult burn this year. In fact, almost everyone I’ve spoken to – from newbie to veteran – felt uniquely challenged. Yes, there are always aspects of Black Rock City that present a struggle, but something about this year felt particularly bleak: building was delayed, sets were missed, camps imploded, the dust was relentless, and relationships changed. 

After the usual social media wash of “OMG best burn ever!”, people came out of the woodwork and began to express how challenging this year’s event really was. The popular DJ atish posted on Facebook, “I find that all nearly all posts I see in my own newsfeed are gushing with positivity around Burning Man, but those who don’t have a great time generally remain silent perhaps out of fear of going against groupthink or perhaps out of a desire not to bring others down.” atish proceeded to eloquently and thoughtfully list his personal struggles at the burn. It was a great read and I’d highly recommend it for its honest and balanced perspective. After his post, I started seeing a lot of similar statements online and it became clear that this year really took a toll on many burners.

Here are some reasons it was personally tough for me, as well as tough on many people I spoke to to after this year’s playa journey:

The Weather Was Rough

It wasn’t just that the weather was more extreme after five relatively easy years. The inclement weather struck at exactly the wrong times. A huge dust storm on Saturday morning before the event slowed down a lot of the last minute build. If there’s bad weather earlier during build week, you can make up for it with a push at the end. However, because of the Saturday whiteout which prevented entry, the last surge of early arrival reinforcements were stuck in line while build crews scrambled to keep tarps from flying away.

The city was very dusty midweek, which is when many burners offer or attend talks, workshops and daytime events. It got especially cold in the evening over the weekend when we usually party and celebrate the breakthroughs we made during the week. My friend Kristen referred to this year as “Sleeping Man,” in contrast to her fond 2012 memories when she saw five sunrises in a row. My friend Yoms felt it too and had this to say of this 17th burn, "I just couldn’t find the spark that usually propels me out in search of night time fun. Unfortunately forcing the issue led to me succumbing to the effects of jet lag, altitude, heat, and fatigue. My body gave up on day three, which meant night time shenanigans were out."

atish also referenced the painful attrition the weather caused, “I love a good dust storm, I love a good challenge, I love some chaos, but this year the cold and repeated dust storms really took it out of me, physically and emotionally…All these were really tough for me and slowly chipped away at my spirit throughout the week.”

We Lost Some Beloved Leaders this Year

The community as a whole seemed to be grieving this year. Leaders of the festival world like Jon Horvath of Fort Knox Five, Dan Fredinburg, Mike Reigle of Distrikt and Fest300’s own co-founder Art Gimbel passed away this year. A beloved Department of Public Works staff member Scott “Spoono” Stephenson passed away during the event’s build. There was a lot of grief and many of us spent a larger portion of our burn than usual at The Temple of Promise, letting go and healing.

The Carnival of Mirrors Theme Made Us Look at Ourselves

Clowns, disco balls, mirrored costumes, circus tents, the Burning Man 2015 art theme sounds fun and light-hearted right? Actually, a Carnival of Mirrors can be kind of a fucked up thing. Think of a distorted hall of mirrors where certain aspects of yourself are exaggerated and distorted to the point of becoming monstrous. It seemed that at Burning Man this year, a lot of people saw magnified aspects of themselves they weren’t necessarily ready to look at.

At one point during the week, I visited one camp that seemed to sum up the mood of the whole city. My friend told me that half of the camp was there for emotional growth while the other half were there to party. The people who were there to take a hard look at themselves were gradually revealing things to the people who just wanted to party, forcing the party-going half to take a look at themselves. This lead to a lot of conflict within the camp, and ultimately felt emblematic of the overall vibe of the playa.

The Emotionally Charged Art Installations Sparked Painful Self-Reflection

Big art pieces can effect the entire mood of the playa. Remember Burn Wall Street in 2012? In an extension of the challenging theme, a lot of the pieces on the playa struck an emotional cord and asked us to look within.

The Totem of Confessions by Michael Garlington, was a gorgeous temple of ancient Khmer and Vedic architecture. While intricate and tactile, it also loomed on the horizon as a dark and foreboding monolith. At its core was a confessional where attendees were encouraged to reveal their deepest selves.

Identity Awareness, by Shane Pitzer, depicted a figure holding a giant question mark and encouraged people to ask "Who are you? What mask has society put on you that you continue to wear? Did you put it there?" Removing masks is hard work and revealing the truth about oneself to others can be awkward, ugly and uncomfortable – not a great mental state to find yourself in if you’ve come to the playa to party.

Similarly, LOVE by Ukraine artist Alexandr Milov (pictured above), showed how our inner selves are captured in our outward struggle. While the piece was meant to encourage the viewer to shed old grudges, those grudges obviously need to be exposed and examined before we can move past them.

For Better or Worse We’re All in This Together

Research published in Frontiers in Emotion Science in 2013 found that “Going to Burning Man made individuals less likely to inhibit the expression of both positive and negative emotions.” Basically, when it’s great there’s a positive feedback loop and we think we’re having the best week of our lives, but when everyone around you struggles, your struggle is amplified by an ensuing negative feedback loop.

atish offered a nuanced view. On one hand "the experience of others is a contagious thing and something I’m sensitive to, so it did bring me down when I already had a few things not going my way." A paragraph later the DJ shows the other side, "While many points in this post make it seem like my experience was a total shitshow, the big picture had lots of greatness too. It felt great seeing and hearing some of my closest friends showcase how great they are as DJs and also hearing others start growing into their potential. I loved spending hours of quality time with my friends, laughing my ass off for hours on end with them, and having deep meaningful conversations that don’t as easily emerge in the default world."

The Good News? A Bad Burn Can Be a Good Thing

Learn to Love the Questions Themselves

Like any ritual or ceremony, Burning Man requires an integration after the event during which participants bring their lessons and experiences back into their everyday life. In fact, part of the difficulty this year was that, for many attendees I spoke to, cathartic breakthroughs didn’t happen on the playa. Maybe it was the unexpected cold on the weekend or the nature of the work itself. I personally didn’t get the transcendent moment of understanding until this week, and I’m still processing and integrating the aspects of myself that were amplified for me to look at. My friend Britz  also recognizes her experience for what it was - an opportunity to grow. "And godammit, growth is fucking painful. The cracks in what I perceived to be stable have indeed been illuminated. And that means I can work on them, because I'm now able to clearly see them." My advice, based on my own experience, is that it takes time to land and that the opportunity to look at painful parts of our lives clearly should be seen as a blessing. 

Vulnerability Deepens Relationships

Often unnoticed in the drama of failure and breakdown is the incredible window of grace in which we truly connect with others because of our vulnerability. Riding into camp after the sun rose I saw my dear friend dancing with tears in his eyes. “Let’s go to the temple,” I said “I need a good cry too.” Afterwards we got some coffee in center camp, shared our stories and became much closer. As I look back over my years at Burning Man I remember the emotional connections far more frequently than the fiascos, even when one led to the other.

Humble Yourself

As Burning Man continues to be a place for ever greater artistic and technological exploration, we may forget how humbling it can be to have our efforts fall flat. atish really hits the lesson on the head here: “This isn't new to 2015, but something I started thinking about a lot this year: one point a lot of sound camp/art car leaders miss is that throwing lots of money at a problem doesn't necessarily create something great. Even if you have the fanciest sound system with the flashiest lights, if your intention comes from a place of ego rather than love, the hundreds of thousands of dollars you spent won't stand a chance in party vibes against a camp with a rag-tag sound system in a small dome with an unknown DJ whose intentions are pure.”

Many creative and professional leaders congregate at Black Rock City each year and frankly, some of us could do with a little humbling. There is a motto at Burning Man: “If you fail, fail spectacularly.” A good failure can be a much more valuable experience than "winning Burning Man."

Burning Man Sucks, Don’t Go!

The expression “Burning Man Sucks, Don’t Go!” is oft posted as a snarky prophylactic for the uninitiated. But is that the lesson we should draw from this experience? Even with my short integration I already see this burn as one of the most positive for my overall life path. Seeing exaggerated versions of my shadow self has taught me what I need to work on and also made me grateful that in general, I live a more balanced life than what I experienced in the desert.

This has also been constant in the feedback I’ve heard from friends about their difficult time in the desert. No one wants to give up on the project and in general people seem to be grateful for the ways the Carnival of Mirrors has helped them grow. My friend Gunita Nagpaul just finished her 14th burn. According to her, the consensus for most this year is that Burning Man was challenging but still awesome. "I think the awesomeness and whole exercise at least for me of going to the Playa is that it is supposed to constantly test your limits physically, emotionally and mentally. Lots of release and letting go, awareness, being present, reflection, inspiration, epiphanies and strength gained from the experience." 

Will the temporary city in the desert arise as yet another painful journey next year? atish says, “I have no idea what’s going to happen next year - maybe some great things, maybe some frustrating things, likely a bit of both, but I'll definitely be back. The anticipation of the unknown is what makes Burning Man and life exciting….I can’t wait to find out.” 

In the end, whatever we build next year will be gone a week later and that's the blessing of Black Rock City's impermanence. 

My deep thanks to everyone who spoke to me and the Burning Man community candidly about their experience this year. Also big love to Galen Oakes for the use of his stunning photography.