Greatness vs. Relevance

Deep have I thought about this matter, in terms of the ultimate destination of human existentialia.

Do we fundamentally seek greatness or is it relevance that really drives us?

People like Gandhi and Martin Luther found something relevant to struggle for and change and then greatness ensued for posterity. They will also be the first people to admit that they did not get it done alone but many a soul joined them on their eternal quest. The brand was theirs that got used in the follow on promotion behind the said initiatives and goals that they achieved.

Bill Gates found fortune and fame in a domain that grants him a place in a certain pantheon dominated by industry stalwarts, but I guess even he was missing the relevance of the human dimension at which he wanted to make an impact and hence his present day quest to make an impact with the work of the Gates foundation.

My thesis and personal experience is that something relevant and meaningful provides a deeper sense of satisfaction at the core of human existence and most likely leads of greatness in the longer term than the road traveled in any other direction.

The upshot of this is that if you are looking for greatness then find something relevant and make a meaningful impact in undertaking the road to solving the said relevant problem.

On ties that BIND et al...

This is an observation piece from a passionate life lived, loved and really enjoyed along the journey so far.

Driving up to the burn, me and my friend Matthew go into the thick of it about the fleeting nature of time and the importance of the moment.

Burning Man itself is a good reflection of life, from dust to dust. The place comes together and falls apart in a space of a couple of months, all said and done. The desert comes to life and then goes back to being a desert for and after the time that burning man needs from the desert.

With that perspective in mind, the thesis we worked out was, things being so fleeting and temporal, how does it impact our relationships and ties that bind.

I had to leave my little child and wife behind to attend the event and it had it’s share of heartburn and emotional upheaval to deal with, I realized some of the emotions that Buddha must have felt when he undertook his journey to enlightenment a long long time ago.

The net of the argument was that our relationships with things material and immaterial should have a healthy distance between us and the said things. Try not to be “consumed” by any such relationship. There is the healthy distance and then there is unhealthy distance, both too close and too far. Too close and you will be consumed, too far and you will be lost or whatever you have a relationship with will be lost to you.

In my journey this has been a truism about any and everything that I have touched and actively cognized once I reached a state of maturity where I understood how the world works and more importantly how I worked and what made me click as an individual and a human being.

Hope this little piece helps the reader in understanding the notion of healthy distance.

Thank you for your time.

On breaking rules et al

In my life experience, the most fun and periods of growth I have had are when I have broken the rules within ethical and moral considerations of appropriate boundaries.

The notion was to go as far against the program as possible.

The thing with breaking rules is that it makes you vulnerable, and leaves you on your own, inherently making you a better and stronger version of yourself, if it does not break you. (yes, Nietzsche!!!)

The important aspect is having a sense of personal responsibility about this whole thing. In your quest for growth, remember to be respectful of other sentient beings along the journey (moral and ethical constructs)

Breaking rules allowed me to:

·         Live life in multiple cultures and places

·         Milk the above places for everything that the said places held in terms of wisdom to be gained about the environment and more importantly about the self

·         Have a child and propagate the species with a girl I wanted to, not had to, because back in India, arranged marriage is the safe bet

·         Marry the mother of my child on terms amenable to my self

·         Experience Europe in a way, shape and form that can only be described as sublime

·         Manage to get to Burning Man on a lark and love everything that it represents

All in all, life has been about growth and learning from the time that I made the crucial decision to try break all manner of rules be it in personal life, professional life and any undertaking that appealed to my heart.

Decommodification

In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A. ~ Gordon Gekko

I could not resist putting that right at the top of the post.

The argument has “some” merit in it, because there are positives and negatives at both extremities of this line of argumentation.

Too little “greed” = lack of innovation

Too much “greed” = financial crisis

You will find brands at Burning Man, the tent in which someone lives was made by a corporation, the solar panel that is powering up parts of burning man was built by a corporation, the generator powering up many pieces of infrastructure was manufactured by a corporation, the art was built leveraging machines manufactured by corporations, the art assembly, maintenance and disassembly happens leveraging big machines manufactured by corporations.

At burning man we leverage but we do not promote.

At burning man we show but we do not promote.

At burning man we see but we do not promote.

At burning man we acknowledge but we do not promote.

It is the hintergrund of a conversation, it is not the focus of the conversation.

There is a fine line laid out in the argumentation above. Give it a think over.

I see a lot of people running around “giving” gifts ;-) screaming that they are living the spirit of the event by doing so and propagating the spirit. I have no problems in collecting shwag, hell, I really love some of the stuff coming out of the burn, makes for more decorations for my burn vehicle ;-), but PEOPLE, remember the notion of decommodification. At its core, it is about immaterialism and spiritualism. Sometimes the gift of time or the spoken word is the best gift you can offer someone.

Personal experience, I met this person at the burn having a problem with a bicycle tire, I offered to fix it for him and did so. His response was not a thank you, he said that he was in a state of bliss, because this is the beauty of the burn, he had a problem and the universe made me materialize to take care of it. The only thing he said was, “this is why I keep coming to burning man”. It is not about the some odd dollars tire repair, it was about the spirit and the energy behind the act. The materials needed to solve the problem was not what was of utmost importance, hell, even if I did not manage to fix the problem, I would have made a friend for life at that moment. He also got to meet a couple of cool people from the camp in the meanwhile and the circle of friends and good energy grew from this one random act of an offer to fix a punctured tire.

C’est la vie "decommodified" at burning man ;-)

Gifting

Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.

Remember the notion “Pay it Forward”, well, here is a community where you have the opportunity to live this value day in and day out.

Your time is the ultimate gift that you give to people.

People called Steve Jobs a hard ass and a difficult person to deal with, think of it from his perspective, his TIME was limited due to his failing health. Do you think he wanted to “waste” his time listening to “nonsense” or progress the discussion forward? Think about it! Now do you still think he was a hard ass and a “rude” person if he cut you short and moved on, because you were not making any sense to him.

At burning man you discover the true spirit behind gifting and most of the time the gifts are immaterial, a hug, a kiss, a little time and patience. That is all it takes.

Yes, it is always good to carry extra water and food for that idle wanderer who inevitably drifts into camp, not really looking for food or water, but it would be a nice ice breaker to offer some food and water and wine to this wanderer. They might gift you in turn with some, hopefully, enlightening company in return. You never know.

I hope this little post conveys the spirit behind this important principle.

And yes, this post in no ways intended to make people who explicitly make shwag to bring to the event from not brining material gifts. I love having a burning man pendant to hang around my neck, some of them are beautiful indeed.

My point is that to gifting does not always mean something material.

Remember…

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust", a phrase from the Anglican burial service, used sometimes to denote total finality. It is based on scriptural texts such as "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return" (Genesis 3:19), and "I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee" (Ezekiel 28:18).

Radical Inclusion

This is an interesting concept; it is about opening the door without questions, challenges, trying to make sense of what the person knocking on the door brings to the table beforehand, unfiltered acceptance, understand, analyze and dissect post acceptance.

It borrows from concepts around positivity. Everyone brings something positive to the mix until proven otherwise.

Everyone contributes positive energy to the mix, rather than negative energy or trying to live off of the positive energy of the mix.

It is about seeking meaning after action and not premeditating about the meaning, result before action. The result will always be a net positive is the mindset that is trying to cultivated.

What happens post fact is that, no job is too small, nothing in the world is not doable, positively or negatively, no work is menial, every act has significant meaning; hopefully positive. This flips the conventional think on its head. A person automatically becomes more open. This puts the person in a learning, listening and grasping mode. “Talk” follows input from one of the senses simply because all the senses are open to input.

I will update this post as some more thoughts formulate on this subject, but you as a reader must be getting an idea of the sense behind this principle and how it can make someone a better human being.

Burning Man - Introduction

This is a series of posts about burning man and how the principles of burning man can be applied in your day to day lives to make a more meaningful existentialia.

It is a culmination of my learnings from indulging in the festival that defies all “explanation”

You can only understand it by participating in it and taking away a meaning from it that is very personal to you. This festival is about what it means to you and not what it meant to someone else and them trying to project the meaning for you into a construct of what it could mean for you, even if they know you intimately.

This is something that your soul, mind and body need to experience for themselves and then conclude on what to make of it for your body, mind and soul.

Without further ado, let me create the next post(s) for each of the principles.