The Nevada desert sun glared down on a 60-person camp, and that camp needed to be built. For those of you in the back, a 60-person camp possesses 120 hands, and as a point of no use whatsoever (but maybe mathematical interest), 600 fingers.
To build a camp in the middle of a hostile desert which will create a sense of physical, psychological, emotional, and astronomical comfort, there are about 600 tasks to complete, so it’s very good we had as many fingers and hands as we did. I stepped forward to help build our 10-metre metal dome, whose pentagon-and-hexagon structure proved to be an incredible exercise in life-size geometry.
(If you can’t figure out the setting of all these fingers and hands and hexagons, keep reading).
One of the sincerely remarkable parts of having this much enthusiastic labour is how quickly the camp takes shape. Wander to the other side of camp to fill up your water, and discover a fully-fledged kitchen where before there were bins, coolers, and pretzels strewn about the dusty ground only an hour earlier.
After replenishing my water-and-pretzel supply and returning to put the finishing touches on this purple, metal dome of ours, we discovered that the entrances were at the wrong angle, and the entire structure was about 2 metres to the left of where it needed to be (much like this related – and upsetting – discovery about the location of the universe). The dome wasn’t terribly heavy, but because it was constructed of about a hundred loosely-connected poles, we needed a hand on each pole, and there were about forty poles. Those of you following along will understand that we required about twenty people.
What would you do? You need about a third of the camp to stop what they’re doing and come help for about five minutes. To be clear, this is an enthusiastic and eager bunch. When asked, these campmates would be quick to agree. But unless you get on a megaphone and in a method borrowed from a 1954 Soviet Propaganda manual, start beckoning your sun-baked comrades, you need to wander through the camp gathering five people at a time, and likely losing half of the already-gathered-and-waiting ones before you have a complete squad.
It was at about this time that one of our camp’s chief technologists put the finishing touches on assembling a respectable sound system we’d end up using to great effect throughout the week. I took the helm, selected a song, and turned up the volume. Bass, high-hats, and boogie filled the air, and within a minute a third of our camp had swarmed to the speakers and within another minute, another third was there. Everyone was dancing, shaking off old cobwebs and getting to know each other in the way that maybe matters most. The sun shone down and we kicked up dust.
When the music stopped, everyone looked up in a bit of a daze, unsure exactly of how they’d arrived there but with no objection that they had. And I – or better said, our music – had summoned the crowd I needed.
I raised my voice, explained that we had a purple circus dome to move, and needed about twenty people for five minutes. Everyone we needed was already there, feeling refreshed. Smiling and happy, each grabbed a pole and moved the dome to where it needed to be, afterward returning to their job enriched for the dance of it.
And I only ever had to ask for help once.
Within a day of arriving at Burning Man, I’d experienced the most effortless, inspiring, and artful leadership lesson of my life.