And Now Back to Me

The person who connected me with my Burning Man ticket had asked me to write her an email to tell her a little bit more about myself. I figured my response would make for a decent blog tonight. Hope y’all are well and doing what you love. Here’s my email to her:

When you asked me why I thought I needed to come to Burning Man, you know that I loved the question. I would normally say, “I loved the question,” but I am aware that you already know that about me. I’m aware that you already know a lot about me and not because of any conversations with me or anyone else and not because of any of my work you might have come across. I’m aware that things happen the way they are supposed to and I am grateful that you have shown up for me in this profound way! This is an important next step for me on my Artistic and Spiritual path. What you’ve done for me has little to do with the actual ticket or the pass or any of the logistical ways you have so been so generous even those are very important and I’m super grateful. If there was nothing else involved I would still be grateful –but as you know, there is. Your soul already knows mine.

 

When you asked me to write an email to tell you more about me, my head started to hurt. The task seems harder than it probably is. I don’t know who I am. And yet I think I’m one of the more self-aware (some might argue self obsessed) people I know. I hope I’m not self-obsessed. The thinking I do about me is mostly in an attempt to “get better” or be a better person. I’ve met a lot of struggles in my life but, as the old Broadway standard goes, “I’m still here.”

 

I care a lot about people and since I was a little boy, I’ve had a lot of problems with the way the world is– not really the world but– hmmm. My problem is with the perceived– no, not “perceived,” (I’m trying to let some people off the hook there.) I have a huge fucking problem with the injustices of the world the way it is. I’m sick of hearing the privileged say, “People make their own privilege.” That’s goddamn ridiculous. It’s a lie built into inequitable cultures to help the haves feel better about having while the have-nots suffer. It’s not the way I think and beyond that, it’s not the way I feel. It’s not who I am.

 

I grew up in a rural Southern fundamentalist Christian church and while I have dispensed with many of the teachings of that church (such as Buddhists are going to Hell), I still hold on to the most important parts of what I learned as a wee boy. I loved the teachings of Jesus and love them still. If he were alive in the flesh on earth now, I think he’d be throwing the “money changers” out of the “temple” one more time. In modern times, those are the “leaders” who preach a false gospel that allows for people to be ridiculously wealthy while others are sick and poor. I know that what my 7 year-old self perceived as the “Will of God” is so much closer to the real thing than the bastardized version of Christianity that has spread like a virus through a country that needs desperately to believe that its gluttony and waste are somehow forgiven yet the personal lives of those who do not agree with them are open game for sociopolitical warfare.

 

I know what addiction feels like. And I think at the root of all the problems I just described is addiction! It is addiction to greed. Self-medicating uncomfortable feelings by doing some behavior and putting off the consequences is addiction. This nation is addicted to greed. And the problem by no means is only in America; we just have a bad case of it.

 

I want to help people at least entertain the idea that there may be other possibilities to the status quo. I want to do this through my Art. I’ve had a little taste of what this is like with my previous work and I love it. That’s what I’m addicted to now. And I have no desire to recover from that addiction.

See y’all tomorrow.