We activate 100 days before the man burns.
That's when the work starts: locking in our campers, improving on last year's operations, taking stock of the tools. Welcoming virgins into the community. Re-engaging the alumni, which is really a reunion. Thinking through the food. Working the spreadsheets, the dues, the budget. All of it is preparation traded for the thing that can't be bought later: precious minutes on the playa to actually be there, to be present. It's a gift, and we treat it like one.
We prepare to thrive, not just survive.
The desert always wins
This is my 13th year. Last year was our 10th at Bao Chicka Wow Wow and one of our hardest. Extreme heat. Rain. Winds at seventy miles an hour, sustained, for hours.
We happened to be raising a 40 by 40 shade over the tents and Shiftpods when the dust storm rolled in. A whiteout overtook us, made worse by how hot and dry the season had been, dust straight to the face, and the wind treated our shade not as shade but as a sail. What I remember is looking around at the camp: people holding on to the shade and holding on to each other, bringing it down together. Thank God no one got hurt. There is no way we could have done it alone.
That's what it takes to look at an unknown, a disaster, an unlikely event, and still push through. You hold on for a long time, until the wind passes.
And then you rebuild. Day after day, with your campmates, to still get to service. To serve bao. To serve food.
The desert always wins. But we can win too. Not all the time, which is exactly why you savor the wins when they come, especially when they end in joy and abundance and filling yourself and others up.
What it trains you for
Burning Man is hard. Working in cannabis is hard. You could say I'm a glutton for punishment, but I believe anything worth working for takes work.
Through the struggle, we grow. Through the stretching, we get more flexible. Through the deeper well we dig, the more we can serve. And like muscles, the most growth comes on the last rep or two. So we push, and in the pushing, we grow.
To serve is one of the most human things we're put on this earth for. Ten years of it in the dust made me a better leader for the unknowns everywhere else, in the desert, in cannabis, in building anything.
Hold on to each other until the wind passes.