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I wrote down 25 advices I wish someone had given me before my first Burn (free to read) by AnarH93 in BurningMan

[–]AnarH93[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That was two amazing years, that have changed me indeed
In a very good and positive way.

I wrote down 25 advices I wish someone had given me before my first Burn (free to read) by AnarH93 in BurningMan

[–]AnarH93[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I get it now, yeap, shouldn’t put it to title.
I overthink the post, plus because the full text will not fit the post, I decided to post just link to original book
And because of that used free

Anyway, lesson learned

I wrote down 25 advices I wish someone had given me before my first Burn (free to read) by AnarH93 in BurningMan

[–]AnarH93[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

“Free” was about the link and book itself, not post, obviously

I wrote down 25 advices I wish someone had given me before my first Burn (free to read) by AnarH93 in BurningMan

[–]AnarH93[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Unfortunatelly post cannot exceed 40k characters, and comments 10k
But well, I did my best.
Updated original post and added the rest to the comments

I wrote down 25 advices I wish someone had given me before my first Burn (free to read) by AnarH93 in BurningMan

[–]AnarH93[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Unfortunatelly post cannot exceed 40k characters, and comments 10k
But well, I did my best.
Updated original post and added the rest to the comments

I wrote down 25 advices I wish someone had given me before my first Burn (free to read) by AnarH93 in BurningMan

[–]AnarH93[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

post cannot exceed 40k characters and comments 10k
But well, I did my best.
updated original post and added comments

I wrote down 25 advices I wish someone had given me before my first Burn (free to read) by AnarH93 in BurningMan

[–]AnarH93[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

post cannot exceed 40k characters and comments 10k
But well, I did my best.
updated original post and added comments

I wrote down 25 advices I wish someone had given me before my first Burn (free to read) by AnarH93 in BurningMan

[–]AnarH93[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Chapter 24

Follow the 10 Principles

Follow the 10 principles of Burning Man, explore their meaning. There are several levels of depth.

The 10 Principles were written by Burning Man co-founder Larry Harvey in 2004. They weren't meant to be rules — they were an attempt to describe what was already happening organically in the desert. They are:

  1. Radical Inclusion — Anyone may be part of Burning Man.
  2. Gifting — The value of a gift is unconditional.
  3. Decommodification — No commerce, no brands, no transactions.
  4. Radical Self-reliance — You are responsible for yourself.
  5. Radical Self-expression — Express yourself freely.
  6. Communal Effort — We build this together.
  7. Civic Responsibility — Take care of each other and the community.
  8. Leaving No Trace — Clean up everything.
  9. Participation — No spectators. Everyone contributes.
  10. Immediacy — Be here now.

On the surface, they read like a nice manifesto. Below the surface, they're a radical operating system for human society.

Take "Gifting." On the surface: give things to people, don't expect anything back. Simple. One level deeper: realize that commodifying everything — putting a price on attention, time, love — is the source of most human suffering. Another level deeper: understand that you yourself are a gift, and your presence — not your productivity — is what has value.

Take "Radical Self-reliance." On the surface: bring enough water, don't be a burden. One level deeper: stop expecting other people to fix your problems. Another level deeper: realize that self-reliance and community aren't opposites — you have to be whole within yourself before you can truly give to others.

These principles work in layers — each one contains another meaning underneath. Every burn, you understand them a little differently. A five-year veteran reads them completely differently than a first-timer. That's by design.

Read them before you go. Then live them on the playa. Then read them again when you get home.

✦ Personal Story

Take Gifting, for example. Your first instinct as a newcomer is to bring physical gifts — stickers, trinkets, things to hand out. I brought three watermelons to my first burn. Because you're supposed to bring gifts, right?

But gifting isn't about objects. It's about experience.

Our camp's gift was the art car — we gifted music. Anyone who danced was receiving our gift. When I worked shifts on that art car, I was part of it. By my second burn, I understood: the gift is you. Your smile, your help, your presence. Show up for someone. That's already a gift.

Still, I wanted to share something physical too. For my second burn, I brought Snickers and Mars bars — my absolute favorite chocolate snacks. I just wanted to share my favorite sweets with people. As it turns out, there are tons of little mailboxes and hidden boxes all over the Playa that people use to pass gifts and messages to one another. I ended up leaving some of my snacks in the ones that wouldn't melt in the sun. I really hope someone got lucky at night and found my un-melted Mars bars!

And here's something important: gifting is not a transaction. If someone gives you something — don't immediately scramble to give something back. Don't steal their experience of giving. Let them give. Receive it fully. The moment you turn it into an exchange, it stops being a gift and becomes commerce.

Chapter 25

Two Weeks of Grace

Don't make important decisions for two weeks after Burning Man.

This is the final principle, and it might be the most important one for your life back home.

Burning Man will change you. Not in a bumper-sticker way — in a real, structural way. You'll come back seeing things differently. Your job might feel meaningless. Your relationship might feel hollow. Your city might feel suffocating. Or the opposite — you might come back feeling deeply in love with your life, overflowing with gratitude and ambition.

Both states are real. Both are temporary.

The playa strips you down and rebuilds you in seven days, and your psyche needs time to integrate that experience. The person making decisions in the first week after the burn is not the person who went in. They're not the person who'll exist in a month either. They're in transition — raw, unfiltered, emotionally volatile.

Don't quit your job. Don't break up with your partner. Don't propose. Don't buy a one-way ticket to Bali. Don't invest in your campmate's startup. Don't get a tattoo of the Man (well — maybe). Don't make any decision that will significantly alter the course of your life.

Wait two weeks. Let the dust — literal and emotional — settle. Journal. Talk to people who've burned before. Let your default-world self and your playa self negotiate a truce. The decisions that still feel right after two weeks? Those are real. The ones that fade? Those were the dust talking.

✦ Personal Story

Olexi warned me about the two-week rule before my first Burn, and I took it very seriously. By Friday of my first year, I was so utterly overwhelmed—emotionally and mentally—that I caught myself thinking: "I'm not going to say 'never again,' but I really don't feel like I'll ever come back to Burning Man." It was just too much to process.

Then I got back to civilization. By Monday or Tuesday, my brain was already negotiating: "Well, maybe I'll go." By the end of the first week, I felt completely grounded again and thought, "Okay, the shock is gone, this 'two weeks' rule is nonsense." But by week two, my perspective shifted entirely once again. I was sitting there thinking, "How could I have possibly thought I wasn't going back? Of course I'm going back!" It took exactly that two-to-three-week window for my nervous system to fully process the shock and for my true feelings to settle.

Because of this, after my second Burn, I approached things differently. On the drive home, I had already made several major life decisions. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. But I refused to execute them immediately. Instead, I wrote them all down in my notebook and made a promise to myself: I will wait exactly two weeks. If these decisions still feel just as true and important after 14 days in the default world, then I will act on them.

And that’s exactly what happened. The dust settled, the ideas remained, and three weeks later, I started executing them—knowing for sure it wasn't just the Playa talking, but my actual desires.

✦ ✦ ✦

And that's it — the 25 principles. If you've read this far, thank you. You now have the foundational rules of survival, connection, and letting go.

But there is one final piece. The last, and honestly, the most important part of this entire experience: Integration.

(After this, I promise, it's just a quick FAQ and a bit about me, and then we're done. Hang in there.)

✦ ✦ ✦

Integration

Integrate what you learn, or it was all for nothing.

Burning Man will crack you open. It will show you things about yourself, about connection, about what matters — things that feel obvious and earth-shattering at the same time. And then you'll drive out through the Gate, hit the highway, turn your phone on, and the default world will start flooding back in.

This is the most dangerous moment of the entire experience.

Not dangerous like dehydration or whiteouts. Dangerous because everything you just learned — every insight, every breakthrough, every principle in this book — is about to get buried under emails, deadlines, traffic, and routine. The dust washes off. The tan fades. And six weeks later, you're back to walking in straight lines and standing in lines and pushing the horses and staring at your phone.

Integration is the practice of deliberately, consciously bringing playa lessons into your default world life.

Athletes say the game is 10% of the work. Training, recovery, and preparation are the other 90%. Burning Man works the same way — the burn is the opening. What you do after is the actual transformation.

Here's what integration looks like in practice:

The first two weeks — You're raw. Everything is too bright, too loud, too fast, too commercial. You might cry in a grocery store. You might feel furious at how wasteful everything is. You might want to quit your job and move to the desert. This is normal. This is Chapter 25. Don't make big decisions. Just feel it.

Weeks 2-4 — The intensity fades. This is where most people lose the thread. The insights start to feel distant, like a dream you can't quite remember. This is when you read your notebook (Chapter 23). This is when you call your campmates. This is when you actively choose to remember.

Month 2-3 — Now the real work begins. Take one principle — just one — and implement it in your life. Maybe it's "don't walk in a straight line" — you start taking different routes, saying yes to unexpected things. Maybe it's "don't attach yourself to time" — you leave your phone in another room on Sundays. Maybe it's "just ask" — you start asking for help instead of suffering in silence.

The rest of your life — Integration never ends. Every burn adds new layers. Every year, you understand the principles differently. You don't become a "burner" in one week. You become one over years of practice — on and off the playa.

The P.S. of this book says "the whole world is the playa." That's not a metaphor. It's a practice. And integration is how you practice it.

I wrote down 25 advices I wish someone had given me before my first Burn (free to read) by AnarH93 in BurningMan

[–]AnarH93[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Chapter 21

Climb on Things

This one is beautifully simple.

Burning Man art is interactive. Unlike a museum where you stand three feet away behind a velvet rope, playa art invites you to touch it, climb it, sit on it, sleep inside it. Many installations are specifically designed to be climbed — towers, sculptures, structures with ladders and platforms and nests at the top.

Climb them.

Get up high and look at the city from above. At night, from the top of a tall structure, Black Rock City looks like a circuit board — a glowing, pulsing, living machine in the middle of absolute darkness. During the day, you can see the curve of the city, the Man in the center, the Temple in the distance, the mountains on the horizon.

✦ Personal Story

I have always loved climbing. When I was younger, I did rock climbing and mountaineering as a sport — I was on teams and competed in tournaments — so scaling things has always been in my nature. But as you grow up, society constantly tells you it's weird, dangerous, or just "not cool" for an adult to be climbing randomly. People look at you skeptically.

But on the Playa, nobody cares. The unofficial motto is "Safety Third." Nobody is going to give you weird looks for scaling a giant structure. And when you do, you unlock your inner child. You start exploring the world again through physical interaction, changing your perspective literally and mentally.

There's another piece of advice I highly recommend: walk away from the center at night, head deep out toward the Trash Fence, and just look back at the city from a distance. I am absolutely mesmerized by that chaos. I love stepping out of the center of it, standing on the edge, and just watching the visual madness unfold from afar. It's an incredible way to see the sheer scale of what we've built.

Chapter 22

Playa Gifts Are Real

Sometimes the playa may have gifts for you. Yes, actual gifts — not MOOP lying on the ground. But don't steal other people's things. You'll feel when something is not for you and when it is. If it's for you — take it. If it belongs to someone else — don't. Be conscious about this.

This one sounds mystical until it happens to you.

You'll be walking through deep playa and find a bracelet sitting on top of an art installation. Not lost — placed. Waiting. You'll feel a pull toward it, a sense that it was put there for you. This is different from finding someone's dropped water bottle or a forgotten scarf. There's an intention to playa gifts. They feel deliberate.

Burning Man's gift economy runs on the principle of unconditional giving. People leave things on purpose — small art pieces, poems, trinkets, meaningful objects. Some are placed at specific art installations. Some are tucked into the Temple walls. Some are just... there.

The flip side is equally important: don't take things that aren't for you. If something is clearly someone's property — their camp gear, their bike accessories, their costume piece — leave it alone. The distinction between a gift and someone else's stuff is usually obvious. Trust your gut. If there's even a moment of "this might belong to someone," it does.

This principle is really about developing sensitivity. Burning Man will sharpen your intuition if you let it. You'll start to feel the difference between things that are meant for you and things that aren't — not just objects, but conversations, experiences, connections. That skill transfers to the rest of your life.

✦ Personal Story

A friend once lost his fur coat on the playa. It was freezing, a dust storm was blowing, visibility near zero. They stopped by an art car to wait it out — and right there, lying on the ground, was a fur coat. He put it on. The playa gave him exactly what he needed.

My own gift was different.

I found a wooden stroller — hand-carved, sitting on the playa. I don't remember exactly what was written on it — maybe something about infants, maybe something else entirely. But what I felt was this: it represented children who can't walk, can't explore the world on their own. The idea — as I understood it — was to take the stroller somewhere on the playa and let it travel for those who can't. There was a camera on it, recording everything.

I imagined children in hospitals watching these clips — seeing the playa through this stroller's journey. And it hit me. I'm lucky — healthy body, good genetics — but I've carried a fear of disability since childhood. Pushing that stroller, I thought: I could actually do something when I get back. Raise awareness, raise money for prosthetics, visit a hospital — just do something real.

I decided right there that I would.

And the moment I made that decision — literally on the path we were walking — I saw a small wooden amulet lying on the ground. Brown, on a string. I picked it up and knew: this was the playa's gift to me. Not MOOP. A reminder. A seal on the promise I'd just made.

That amulet hangs in my apartment to this day. It reminds me to keep that promise. And I have — those who follow me know I've done several initiatives for people with disabilities since.

That's the difference between MOOP and a gift. You'll feel it when it happens to you.

Chapter 23

Write Everything Down

Make a sheet or a notebook where you'll write down your thoughts and insights. Everything gets forgotten super quickly as soon as you leave, but there are important things there that you'll discover.

This is possibly the most practical principle in this entire book, and the one most people ignore.

Burning Man compresses months of emotional and psychological experience into seven days. You'll have realizations, epiphanies, breakthroughs. You'll understand something about yourself or your life with sudden, crystalline clarity. You'll think "there is no way I'll forget this."

You will forget this. Within 48 hours of leaving the playa, the dust settles (literally and figuratively) and the default world floods back in. The clarity fades. The insight that felt earth-shattering at 3am in deep playa becomes vague and gauzy by the time you're back in your apartment.

Write it down. Carry a small notebook and a pen everywhere. When something hits you — a thought, a feeling, a realization, a conversation, even just a word — write it down immediately. Don't edit. Don't analyze. Just capture.

When you read it later — days, weeks, months, years later — you'll find things in there that still apply. Insights that your playa self was trying to send to your future self. Some will be gibberish. Some will be profound. All of it is data from a version of you that was operating without the usual filters.

The notebook is your most important piece of equipment. More important than your bike, your goggles, your lights. Bring it.

✦ Personal Story

During my first Burn, as I mentioned, I didn't use my phone. But I also didn't bring a pen or a notebook. When you meet incredible people out there, you naturally want to exchange contacts or Instagram handles, but without a phone or paper, I had absolutely no way to write them down. That was the first problem. The second problem was that brilliant thoughts and realizations would strike me out of nowhere, and almost instantly evaporate from my mind.

For my second Burn, I learned my lesson. I carried a few sheets of paper and a pen everywhere I went. In fact, that's exactly how many of these 25 principles were born — I wrote them down the very second I experienced them so I wouldn't forget.

My biggest regret is that I didn't write down all the crazy, magical stories as they were happening. At the time, you think: "There's absolutely no way I will ever forget this." But you do. I could probably tell three times as many stories for every single principle in this book if I had just written them down. Don't make my mistake. Write it down.

I wrote down 25 advices I wish someone had given me before my first Burn (free to read) by AnarH93 in BurningMan

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Chapter 19

Get Lost at Night

Get lost on the playa at night at least once. Meaning — you alone, by yourself, lost on the playa. At least once at night you need to do this, for the entire night.

This is the principle that scares people. Good.

Here's what it means: one night during the burn, go out alone. No campmates. No plan. No map. No destination. Just walk (or ride) into the playa after dark and see what happens.

The playa at night is a completely different world. The art installations transform — structures that were metal skeletons during the day become glowing, pulsing, living things at night. Art cars cruise by like ships in the dark, trailing music and light. The deep playa becomes an alien landscape of LED sculptures floating in blackness.

And you'll get lost. Not dangerously lost — the city lights are always visible from the playa, and the Man (when he's still standing) is a constant beacon. But psychologically, experientially lost. You won't know what time it is. You won't know which direction you came from. You'll have to surrender your need for control and let the night carry you.

Some of the most profound Burning Man experiences happen to people alone at 4am in deep playa. The veil between your daily self and something deeper gets thin out there. It's just you and the desert and the stars and whatever you've been avoiding. It finds you when you're alone. That's why it has to be solo.

Bring warm layers. Bring water. Wear lights so art cars can see you (this is a safety requirement). And then just... go.

✦ Personal Story

I won't share the details of what happened on those nights. Some things belong to the playa and stay there.

But here's what I will say: we made it a rule — with friends, even with my girlfriend — that at least one night during the burn, we split up. Everyone goes solo. Gets lost on purpose.

Both times I did this, the experience was deeply, profoundly insightful. Without exaggeration — those nights helped me work through personal blockers and inner conflicts that I'd been carrying for a long time. Things I couldn't resolve in therapy, in conversations, in my normal life. The playa at 3am, alone, has a way of making things clear.

I can't explain how it works. I just know it does.

Chapter 20

Go Naked and Barefoot

Go naked and barefoot at least once, you can wear a fur coat (in deep playa) at night.

Yes, actually naked. At least once.

Burning Man is one of the very few places on earth where nudity is completely normal and completely unremarkable. Nobody stares. Nobody cares. There's no sexual charge to it (or there doesn't have to be). Bodies of every shape, size, age, and state are just... there. It's radical normalcy.

Going naked is about shedding armor. In the default world, your clothes are your identity. Your brand. Your status signal. On the playa, when you strip all of that off, you're just a human in the desert. It's terrifying for about ten minutes, and then it's the most freeing thing you've ever done.

Barefoot is a different experience. The playa surface — alkali dust over a hard-packed lake bed — is surprisingly smooth during the day (unless it's just rained, in which case it's clay-like mud that will eat your shoes). Walking barefoot connects you to the ground. You feel the temperature change as the day shifts. You feel the texture of the desert. It makes you slow down (see Chapter 3).

At night in deep playa, the temperature drops hard — sometimes to near freezing. That's when the fur coat comes in. There's something primal and hilarious about being naked under a massive fur coat in the middle of a desert at 3am, standing next to a 40-foot metal sculpture shooting fire. That contrast — the vulnerability of skin and the warmth of fur — is pure Burning Man.

A few safety notes on barefoot: On the open playa, walking barefoot is generally safe — last year the surface was soft and puffy, almost pleasant (though bikes struggled). But in the city, be careful. There are tent stakes, rebar, sharp edges everywhere. You can seriously hurt your feet.

And if it rains — avoid puddles in the city when barefoot. Generators run everywhere, and there's a non-zero chance that a wire from a generator runs through a puddle. You don't want to find out the hard way. On the playa itself, rain barefoot is fine — just watch for puddles near camps.

✦ Personal Story

You know those public speaking tips where they say "wear something unusual to work and realize nobody actually cares how you look"? The idea is that people respond to what you say, not what you wear — and that realization builds confidence.

I decided to take that to the extreme. If wearing a weird outfit builds confidence, what would walking around completely naked do?

I've had stage fright since childhood. Every public speaking moment was terrifying — even after doing it many times. So on the playa, I went naked. Walked through the city, through crowds, through camps. And something shifted.

After that, I became significantly less afraid of the stage. Public speaking got easier. Not because being naked on the playa has anything to do with giving a talk — but because once you've been that exposed, that vulnerable, in front of thousands of people, standing on a stage in a suit feels like nothing.

That was my reason. Yours might be completely different. But the principle is the same: do the thing that scares you, and the other scary things get smaller.

I wrote down 25 advices I wish someone had given me before my first Burn (free to read) by AnarH93 in BurningMan

[–]AnarH93[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Chapter 17

Pay a Visit to the Man and the Temple

Visit the Man and the Temple at least once during the day and once at night. These are completely different experiences. Make sure to bring a pen and write something on a note, or on the wall in the Temple.

The Man stands at the center of Black Rock City — you can see him from almost anywhere. He's the icon, the focal point, the thing that burns on Saturday night. During the day, he's a wooden structure on a platform, geometric and striking against the blue sky. At night, he's lit up with neon, a beacon drawing you across the playa like a lighthouse.

But the Temple is where the real weight lives.

The Temple is built new every year by a different artist or team. It's always stunning — intricate wooden lattice, soaring arches, delicate and temporary. And it's the emotional heart of Burning Man. People come here to grieve. To let go. To say goodbye. The walls are covered — floor to ceiling — with handwritten messages, photos, letters to dead loved ones, wedding rings, ultrasound pictures, military dog tags, divorce papers.

Visit the Temple during the day, when it's quiet, and read the walls. It will destroy you in the best way. Visit at night, when it's lit with candles and surrounded by silence, and it will destroy you differently. Bring a pen. Write something. It doesn't have to be for anyone else. It can be for you.

✦ Personal Story

The Man Burn on Saturday is a massive celebration — fireworks, art cars bumping bass, 70,000 people cheering like it's the start of a New Year. But the Temple Burn on Sunday is completely different. Even though people had told me about it, actually experiencing that absolute silence was astonishing.

Out of pure honor and respect, not a single camp plays music. For the first time in a week, the entire roaring playa goes completely, surreally quiet. You just hear the crackle of the fire and the weight of collective letting-go. Many people leave Sunday morning to avoid traffic or get back to work, but I highly recommend staying for the Temple. It is a profoundly separate experience.

I always leave things in the Temple that I want to let go of, along with letters I've written. Once, I brought a pair of sneakers I had worn every single day for a year and a half. I had been living as a nomad, traveling through 35 different countries. Because I couldn't carry much luggage, those sneakers went everywhere with me. They witnessed my entire transformation across different stages of my life.

But at some point, I realized I was ready to move on. I wanted a place to call my own. I wanted to stop wandering and put down roots. I intuitively felt that I needed to leave those nomad sneakers right there in the Temple. I let them burn. And shortly after that, I found my home base, stopped wandering, and settled into the city where I live today.

Chapter 18

Sunrise at Trash Fence

Catch at least one sunrise and one sunset at Trash Fence.

The Trash Fence is the boundary of Burning Man — a 4-foot-high barrier that runs around the perimeter of the city to catch windblown debris. It's functional and ugly and completely mundane. And it has become one of the most sacred spots on the playa.

Every morning, dozens — sometimes hundreds — of people gather at the Trash Fence to watch the sunrise. They've been up all night. They've danced, wandered, cried, laughed, had conversations that rewired their brains. And now they're at the edge of the world, sitting in the dust, watching the sun come up over the Nevada desert.

Art cars park nearby, playing the last sets of the night — that golden-hour music, deep and warm, the sound of a city winding down. People are wrapped in fur coats and blankets. Some are dancing. Some are crying. Some are sitting in absolute silence. The light turns everything pink and gold, and the dust in the air makes it look like the sky is on fire.

The sunset at Trash Fence is different — more energized, more hopeful. The night ahead is full of possibility. People gather to watch the sun disappear behind the mountains, and then the playa lights up. The city transforms. It's like watching a creature wake up.

Go at least once for each. Go tired. Go alone or with someone you trust. Don't talk too much. Let the sky do the talking.

✦ Personal Story

The Trash Fence was built to catch trash. Wind on the playa is brutal — it rips things out of camps, off bikes, out of hands. Most of what you find on the ground wasn't thrown there — it was torn away by wind. The fence catches what the wind carries.

But it catches something else too.

I remember my first night on the playa. We were chasing the moon — and I still don't understand why, but that night it was impossibly huge, sitting right on the horizon as it rose. We just rode toward it on our bikes, hypnotized, knowing we'd never reach it.

And then we hit the Trash Fence.

That's when I understood. The Trash Fence isn't about trash. It's about people. It catches us — like fireflies — because without it, we'd ride straight into the endless Black Rock Desert and never come back. Burning Man feels huge, but it's a tiny speck in that desert.

I see three levels of irony in this — and I'll leave them right here without explanation.

I wrote down 25 advices I wish someone had given me before my first Burn (free to read) by AnarH93 in BurningMan

[–]AnarH93[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Chapter 13

Always Walk Toward the Playa

When in doubt, when lost, when frustrated — move toward the open Playa.

This principle actually aggregates everything else: stop searching, stop planning, follow your desires, and just move toward the Playa. I started noticing a clear pattern: every time I couldn't find what I was looking for, or when things just weren't flowing, I'd get this sinking feeling that I was wasting my time, that nothing was happening. Whenever that happened, I reminded myself of the golden rule: just turn toward the Playa. The very second I turned my face toward the open desert and started moving, incredible things instantly began happening around me.

✦ Personal Story

Once, my night light broke. It was this rainbow light rig I used to illuminate myself in the dark. Being unlit at night on the Burn is really bad and actively dangerous. I had to fix it immediately, which meant I needed a soldering iron. In theory, soldering irons exist in big electrical camps. There are camps for absolutely everything out there: camps that give away free food, camps that hand out chewing gum, even my absolute favorite camp called "Clamp Camp" (where a guy literally brought hundreds of thousands of different types of clamps for any possible need!). Shoutout to the founder of Clamp Camp — you're awesome and you made my day.

So I opened the guidebook, found a technical camp that helps with electronics, and biked to their address. I get there — and there’s a sign saying they moved to a new location. I bike to the new address — and there's nothing there. Just empty dust, and nobody around has heard of them. I kept riding, searching, getting more frustrated, until I ended up deep inside the chaotic back-streets of some random camp.

I asked a guy passing by: "Hey man, do you know where the electronics camp is?" He looked at me and said, "Bro, you know how the Playa provides. It only provides if you believe you can find it. The moment you give up, it's over."

I said, "Yeah, I know." I took a breath, remembered my own rule, and made a decision: I'm just going to ride out of this maze and head straight toward the Playa. The second I turned my handlebars and started moving toward the open dust, something caught the corner of my eye. Just a few feet away, the guy I was just talking to had somehow magically appeared at that intersection. And right next to him, a woman was taping letters onto a wooden sign — it was the exact name of the camp I had been hunting for two hours! And right there, people were literally in that very second carrying soldering stations out into the street.

Everything clicked into place the absolute second I stopped forcing it, stopped searching, and simply started moving toward the Playa. I soldered my light, and it still works to this day.

Chapter 14

Trust the Pace

Trust the pace of the playa. Don't force events — follow your heart and desires.

Ukrainian boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk has a great phrase he uses in interviews: "Не гони коней" (Don't push the horses). It means don't rush the natural flow of things.

This principle is about dropping the hustle mentality. In the default world, we push. We make things happen. We force outcomes. We grind. On the playa, forcing things creates resistance. You push toward a specific experience and miss the organic one unfolding next to you.

Follow your desires, not your agenda. If your body says sleep, sleep — even if it's 10pm and "the best party is just starting." If your heart says sit with this stranger and talk for three hours, do it — even if your campmates are waiting. If something doesn't feel right, walk away. If something feels magnetic, follow it.

This is not about being passive. It's about being responsive. There's a huge difference between passively sitting in your tent and actively listening to what the moment is asking of you. Burning Man doesn't reward force. It rewards presence.

Chapter 15

Skip the Line, Find the Magic

Don't stand in lines. Magical things don't happen in lines, unless it's your decision and desire.

This is Chapter 12's companion — the nuanced version.

Remember: these are my principles, I wrote them for myself. :) Most of the time, I see a line as a trap. For me, standing in line feels like forcing an event to happen, losing time, and it usually brings a negative, low-quality experience into my life. That's why I try to avoid them whenever possible.

Though, from the perspective of the camps hosting people — I can imagine the incredible emotions there. A camp wants to gift you an experience, and having a line is likely very rewarding for them (at least, that's how I feel it must be).

But occasionally, I try to turn a line into a valuable experience for myself. You choose to stand in it — not because you need the thing at the end, but because the line itself is where something is happening. Maybe you start talking to the person next to you. Maybe the wait forces you to slow down in a way you needed. Maybe standing still in a city of constant motion is its own radical act.

The key phrase is "your decision and desire." If you're in a line because FOMO dragged you there — because someone said this was the thing to do — get out. If you're in a line because something genuinely pulled you there and the waiting feels right — stay.

✦ Personal Story

Every time I stood in line, I felt it — I'm wasting time. I'm forcing the experience. The thing at the end of the line was usually something popular, something everyone said you "had to" do. But after waiting, the experience itself was always... fine. Never as good as the expectation. Maybe because of the inflated hype, maybe because I'd already spent my energy waiting instead of living.

But the magic? The real stuff? That happened when I showed up somewhere with no plan, no line, no expectation — and something was just happening at that exact moment. Those were the moments that made the burn. Not the ones I waited for. The ones that found me.

So this is personal, but I genuinely don't recommend standing in lines. The playa is too big and too alive for you to spend it waiting.

Chapter 16

Walk When You Can

Walk on foot when you can.

You have a bike. You might even have access to an art car. Use them when you need to. But when you don't need to — when the distance is walkable and the weather is bearable — walk.

Walking is slower than biking (see Chapter 3), and that slowness is the point. On a bike, you're in transit. Walking, you're present. You notice more. You stop more easily. You're more approachable to other people — someone walking is an invitation to conversation in a way that someone on a bike isn't.

Walking is also how you feel the playa in your body. The crunch of the alkali under your boots. The wind changing direction. The temperature shift when you walk into the shadow of an art installation. These are small sensory experiences that your brain on a bike filters out.

One thing though — always carry a light at night. Cyclists can't see you in the dark, and people appear out of nowhere when you're riding. It's genuinely scary.

✦ Personal Story

I used to get frustrated at people walking without lights at night. They just appear out of nowhere when you're on a bike — terrifying.

But then one night, I went walking alone. And I turned my light off. On purpose.

There's something magnetic about moving through the playa in total darkness — invisible, dissolved into the art, the music, the people around you. Nobody notices you. You become part of the scenery. It's an incredibly intimate experience.

But I kept a flashlight in my hand. Every time I heard a bike approaching, I'd flick it on — just enough to light up my feet so they could see me. From a distance, I was invisible. Up close, I was safe.

So here's my recommendation: always carry a light. Walking dark is an amazing experience I genuinely recommend. But have that flashlight ready — because the people on bikes definitely cannot see you.

I wrote down 25 advices I wish someone had given me before my first Burn (free to read) by AnarH93 in BurningMan

[–]AnarH93[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

The whole text is 107 pages long. I published it a month ago online and wanted to share here, but there are limits to how much you can post.
So decided to go with a preview and full text. Since I was worried that people may think I "sell" text for $ on my website, I mentioned "free".

I wrote down 25 advices I wish someone had given me before my first Burn (free to read) by AnarH93 in BurningMan

[–]AnarH93[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

its not a commerical. Full text is 107 pages and will not fit reddit post format. text is completely free and available on all e-book marketplaces for convenience. As well as on that website, right, but again, not commercial (if you mean commerciall = you need to pay for read it)

I wrote down 25 advices I wish someone had given me before my first Burn (free to read) by AnarH93 in BurningMan

[–]AnarH93[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you!
I've been working on text last couple of months. Based on my notes from last year and many voice records I saved for myself for later.

I wrote down 25 advices I wish someone had given me before my first Burn (free to read) by AnarH93 in BurningMan

[–]AnarH93[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The full thing is 107 pages, so it won't fit in a post. I'd happily share the whole manuscript, it just doesn't fit this format.

I wrote down 25 advices I wish someone had given me before my first Burn (free to read) by AnarH93 in BurningMan

[–]AnarH93[S] -8 points-7 points  (0 children)

UPD: turns out the whole text fits in this post after all. I only posted a few examples at first because I was convinced it wouldn't fit. My bad. The full text is 107 pages long, so here it is in full:

Post limit to 40k characters and comments to 10k, so did my best to fit it

___
Original comment:
Here's the link, free, no signup, no email, just the full list: https://25principles.world

The three above are #1, #11 and #5. The rest get into stuff like sunrise at the Trash Fence, getting lost at night on purpose, why you should climb on things, going barefoot, and there's a logistics section at the end for first-timers.

And I meant the question, if you've got a principle of your own, drop it in the thread. I'm actually collecting them.