…and you usually find a disappointed idealist.
I missed Burning Man this year, and there’s nothing like Dori’s list of “done to death Burning Man trends” to remind me why I wasn’t totally sorry about the decision. Part of the joy of Burning Man to me was the sheer unknown of it all–people doing things so totally and completely out of the mold that you were stunned to a point that all usual methods of critiquing and criticism are rendered useless.

Well, no longer.

What Dori posted makes me laugh (because so much of it is so true), but also makes me sad in this way that’s hard to explain: is this cycle of discovery and becoming jaded (”jadation”?) endless? Is it just a constant circle of boredom, excitment, and then boredom again? Do we always have to be wondering what’s next? Perhaps this is just the curse of the 20something, always looking for something newer, hipper, and less done…but it’s exhausting. And I’m sick of it. In an endless search for authenticity, it’s tiring to be constantly trashing.

Don’t get me wrong: Dori’s comments are all spot on (most of you know about my issues with topless fire performers), but it’s still sort of sad somehow.

On a sort of unrelated note, ever since I’ve been back from New York I’ve had this sort of pissed off expression glued on my face and I can’t quite seem to shake it. Is it the economy? Is it that some of my sweet little dreams were dashed for the low low price of $6k this summer? Is it that I went to New York City instead of Black Rock City? Whatever it is, I’m sick of the fact that my eyebrows seem constantly furrowed these days, like there’s always wind that smells like bad news blowing in my face.

As my friend Shiuan said, “we can’t be blamed for the economy, but we will be accountable to our own compromises.”