by Ben Hoadley, Florida

I think you make some great points, Tao and Sami. For me, its very similar to the thoughts we shared over Live Earth. My question for burning man is this, by joining a collective group of 50,000 like minded people who advocate radical self expression…how do you keep from becoming one of the herd? I don’t think Burning Man is a bad thing and I don’t think banding together with like-minded individuals is a bad thing. It can promote unity, growth and awareness as well as birth new friendships. I just question the philosophy behind self-expression by doing what everyone else is doing. Maybe I’m dancing too close to the line of semantics.

One of the things that I enjoy most about this blog is the perspective of the people who participate. After all, the point of Burning Man and the point of this blog is to join like minded people together in their efforts, right? I mean, we advocate responsible living and being good stewards of our resources and for some reason making that effort in conjunction with friends or even other bloggers somehow makes the journey more accessible and palatable. Even though we are working in common goals together, there is still a vast sea of diversity amongst us.

I think its important to remember that. Tao mentioned, in “It’s an Energy Thing”, that she has a 75-minute daily routine and morning walks in the woods. Sadly, most people don’t make their physical, mental or spiritual health a priority in this way. People likely say, there is no way I could free up that much time in my day for that! To me, that’s a very sad thing. It’s sad because for most people it really has nothing to do with available time in the day - it has everything to do with priorities. If you decide to make it happen, it will happen. If you make the decision not to prioritize your health and well-being, then understand you’re making that choice by free will rather than such a thing being dictated to you by the availability of fleeting minutes in your day.

People are subject to human nature - some will choose to learn and foster growth while others are seemingly content with simply passing days. Some people will travel to Burning Man. Others will wake up in the morning and read this blog. Some people look at life and see opportunities for growth. Others see a mountain of frustration and life-load of obstacles. Some people are scared off by things like self empowerment, yoga, or even earth-honoring overtones. If its not something they’ve experienced, they’re likely to rule it out for the simple reason that it’s different. And then there’s people who embrace the diversity and different experiences.

The goal is to be transparent. The goal is to be accepting and understanding. Embrace the idea that people come from all walks of life. Some people are into yoga. Some people are not. Some are for daily exercise routines. Others don’t see it as important. Some people get up and live life everyday. For others they might find that somewhere along the way living became dying.

Success to me is circumventing alienation by way of building a bridge to connect with people. Yoga, no yoga, exercise, no exercise…just come and learn and share experiences and be open to the idea that even though people may act and have different habits than you, doesn’t mean you can’t learn from their experiences. Success is heightening the awareness in people that personal responsibility is the only cure to problems like climate change and rapidly depleting resources. I think it’s easier to tell a story about personal responsibility with an audience you’ve made a connection with. So how do you make that connection? How do you make that connection with someone who feels alienated? If they don’t understand where you’re coming from, or what you’re doing, or why you’re doing it…you’ll have a much more difficult time trying to share what you’ve learned - the way of change.

Ben studied Civil Engineering at Purdue University and owns HPS Engineering - “green” consulting and construction. You can reach him at hpscompanies@comcast.net.

Tags: culture

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 6th, 2007 at 2:27 pm and is filed under Green Misc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.