Over the next few weeks, Special Correspondent Kirk Kahn will be bringing you updates from the annual party/social-experiment known as Burning Man.

Before I begin, let me make the disclaimer that these are my own personal theories, and they don’t necessarily reflect the views of official Burning Man philosophy or anyone else on the LimeWire Music Blog for that matter. I came up with the following ideas based on my own experience and what I’ve heard/read/sensed of Burning Man, and my imminent experience will either support them or not.

One of the primary experiences one is likely to have at Burning Man is a re-evaluation of one's values. This can be seen on both the personal and collective levels as well as on an inner level.

Beauty

One very big element of Burning Man that serves as the "glue" binding the experience together into a unified theme is the art. Many attendees of Burning Man spend much of the year putting elaborate artistic projects together to display out on the Playa. At the end of the week, they burn them. A huge investment in time and energy gone in an instant. Why would someone willingly destroy their own artwork? The "leave no trace" rule may be one answer, but on another level I believe the answer lies in the inherent value of art.

The saying "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is a reflection of personal, subjective values that can only be measured by the yardstick of one's unique tastes and preferences. The creation of art is not just an act of self-expression, it's a way to continually discover and renew the self. One of the primary philosophies of Burning Man is immediacy – having a direct experience of life without the normal filters we place between us and the experience, and eliminating all the other "mind clog" that prevents us from being in the present moment. Real art that is truly an act of self-renewal requires this. By trying to maintain an identity formed in the past or thinking about how others will judge it in the future, we remove ourselves from the present moment, prevent the possibility of having an original experience, and block the flow of inspiration that is the wellspring of creativity. Burning the art then is a symbol of not holding onto the past and allowing the present moment to be self-renewing and self-transforming.

Money

The other aspect of value is not on the personal level but rather on the collective level. While beauty doesn't require an objective standard of measurement, some things do in order to have usefulness in our culture. The common yardstick of objective value is money, and at Burning Man there is no money exchange (with the sole exception of official Burning Man sold ice and coffee). How then is one to measure the value of something in order to ensure a fair exchange? Since value is very personal, collective measurements of it can never truly reflect the actual value of something. Money helps to maintain a practical system of cooperation, but it also limits the potentially boundless value of human creation. It reduces creations to possessions, participation to labor, and love of life to a need to survive. Instead of being present and enjoying the moment, we end up seeing everything in terms of how much value we can extract from it, and eventually all of our actions become centered around acquiring more and more value. Let's take time as an example. Many people place great value on time, and the saying "time is money" is a perfect reflection of this attitude. Most of the working class world trades time for money either by salary or wage, and especially for these people time becomes an asset and is potentially locked into the same never-ending cycle as anything else that acquires value.

The "gifting" economy of Burning Man is an opportunity to break free of this self-imposed prison. Imagine the limitless value of your creations if you were not forced to place a dollar amount on them or the potential joy of participation if you did not have to measure the value of your labor. Money may be a necessary evil, but how much do we really need it, and is it always necessary to limit something's value?

This is the first of a two part blog entry on Burning Man Values. The second post will address love and community values.