At the conference Larry spoke about how the ten principles interact with each other. He looked at Baker Beach in terms of those concepts bumping up against each other from day one, and at the end he talked about his hat. Said he hardly wore it anymore, thought it looked better on just about anyone else. I don’t know about that, him and the hat are synonymous in some ways at this point, but it makes a great metaphor. He tossed it out into the crowd saying he was passing the hat on to us now. Clovis caught it, he’s from Flipside, and then a neat thing happened. Clovis tried it on, mugged for us all, then tossed it on to someone new.

This went on for a while. The hat moved around the room like a beachball at a day on the green, each one trying it on and then passing it on, it took on its own life separate from the man who made it iconic. As a symbol of a shared vision we all took it on. Then gave it away.

As the Burning Man Network grows the task of curating its flavor falls to us all. Who is to say if it’s within the ten principles or not? You are. The view from under the hat is a perspective of some imagined collective. We have internalized the recipe and we are gifting it out to the world.

Provide a container for the experience. Invite the community to come together and create something to share with each other. Be safe enough to be sustainable but still crazy enough to have fun. Make stuff. Let it go. Walk away knowing you have it inside you now. Rinse and repeat.

A great post on same from Caveat Magister on the Burning Blog