Seasonal affective disorder really sucks.
About half of the time.
The other half is flippin’ fan-fucking-tastic.
From about mid-May to—optimistically—early October, you feel like you’re continually freebasing crystal meth.
Not that you’ve ever done that, but next time January rolls around maybe give it a whirl.
Even while getting eaten alive and infected with West Nile Virus, a night in the park drinking beers beneath random fireworks and light rain while periodically riding a stationary bicycle to help power a screening of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is time damn well spent. And who doesn’t love watching lithe, body-painted young women get slathered in a blackish substance by an awkward kid in a business suit as part of a guerilla and artistic environmental protest staged amidst an open dance party throbbing in the heart of the metropolis?
Despite the fact that moving away from winter would be functionally identical to doubling the remainder of your life expectancy, the true north, strong and free, knows a little something about taking advantage of good weather while it can.
This consistently magical time of year is tainted only by the nagging feeling that it is impossible to experience all of the best of everything.
Yet, we can try.
I find myself once again on the cusp of Astral Harvest, an electronic music festival that—for better or worse—has influenced my life in some fairly significant ways. I still don’t have a ticket for this year’s gathering, and I must sheepishly admit that I’m a bit apprehensive about getting one.
I am not so naive as to venture a criticism of the festival itself, but rather the way I fear I will interact with it. I am worried that, like so many things in my life, I will simply end up going through similar motions in anticipation of similar results. I am worried I will follow a recipe for the status quo.
Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and expecting different results. So, I guess I’m preoccupied with how I might go about doing a few things a differently this year, despite the fact that previous results have generally been good.
Maybe I need a different result, even if it’s a bad one.
Even if I don’t have a specific plan for achieving that in mind—which I rarely do—I’ll almost definitely fail unless I heed HST’s advice.
Buy the ticket.
Take the ride.
January’s just around the corner.
HR Lincoln 
just go. it might be the same, it might be different. the weather might be shit, but better to be outside than not, doing things than not. this is why i am writing to you from a train to edinburgh in the middle of the week, instead of from the office, even though it’s pouring rain again, though i should be doing work, because sometimes you just need to do things.
also, please fill me in on this oil slick protest…
Noah, I think you are a person who craves and appreciates diversity. I could be entirely wrong in this assumption, but from what fragments of your history I am familiar with, I say this with a certain amount of conviction.
If you have liked what has happened in the past, then you will probably like it again. But if you are expecting pr wishing for different results, then this might be a disappointment. Or even if you know of greener pastures, then this could be underwhelming.
Festivals build up a culture, fans expect this brand when they attend and in my opinion are not really challenged to stamp it with their own desires for change. I look back on my first encounters with rainbow serpent festival. I loved it, I wished a year away to have it again. After that fateful summer on the road in Canada and the us I changed. I experienced festivals that were each diverse and unique in many ways. My prototype for enjoyment has now been altered so significantly that when I went back to rainbow, I was faced with such familiarity that the whole experience became dull. I had changed, what I wanted had changed and what was provided remained unchanged. Since then I have approached festivals with a huge amount of apprehension, or maybe more appropriately, avoidance.
I wouldn’t say I miss it too much. I probably miss the memories more than anything, but lately I have been doing something that is vastly different from everything that I used to do. This has been refreshing, and I think fairly enlightening.
I think whatever you decide to do, you will make it your own. Thanks for the post!
When I wrote this last week, I was pretty certain that I was going to–and needed to–make Astral happen for me yet again. Then, on Saturday, I just kinda decided that all of the stress I had surrounding it wasn’t worth it.
In a lot of ways, Levi, I’m right there with you in doing something that is vastly different from what I used to do. That being said, I feel like I have a lot of uneasiness surrounding the fact that I haven’t gone far enough in that direction. I suppose it’s this (somewhat underdeveloped) pursuit of change that I’m confronting right now.
In a sense, I’m very aware of the cultural rigidity that festivals develop, and–personally–I kinda feel like Astral is really doing this. There’s part of me that feels really connected to that festival that wants to challenge that culture. I am, however, somewhat reluctant to do so for two reasons.
First, I’m not entirely confident that I’m ready to do that in a wholly constructive way. This is me acknowledging the fact that I haven’t been able to make enough positive adaptations in my own life over the past little while, and so am not necessarily in a great position to go out and about trying to influence other changes. Which isn’t so much me getting all mopey about it, but rather recognizing that it’s still a work in progress.
Second, it’s very possible that it’s just not my place to do so. If that festival culture is working for a group of people, I don’t necessarily want to waste my time and efforts raining on their parade. Connected to this idea is the notion (which is really just a pretty solid hunch/gut feeling) that my aforementioned work in progress is not going to be particularly helped along by going to Astral. It might not hurt it (and it also might) but I just genuinely feel like there’s no forward progress for me there this year.
Which brings me to Motion Notion. I have almost the exact opposite feeling about it, and just sort of decided that I would rather spend an extra weekend making sure I was all prepped up for a solid MoNo than potentially wasting an additional weekend trying to recover from a mediocre Astral. So, Jenanne, while I initially kinda felt that not going to Astral would be sort of disregarding your very good advice, I tried to keep in mind that making this decision wasn’t me deciding to do nothing, just deciding to focus my efforts a bit better.
I think I might do a bit more to explore the reasons behind all this in one of my upcoming posts, even if not exactly directly. But I wonder if, Levi, on your way into Burning Man in 2010, you remember a guy on the side of the road holding up a sign that read “Jesus died so you wouldn’t be burnin’, man.” Anyway, I’ll probably start elaborating on that.
Thanks for reading, friends.
no no, it makes perfect sense that if you’re saving up to get ready for another festival.
i totally understand needing to rest/prepare. i was just encouraging you to do it because was just in a place where i needed to make a quick decision to just take a break, and i was feeling very good about doing so.
but yes! focus is important! one only has so much energy, whether it mental/emotional/physical. i hope you have a splendid time at the next one. 🙂
i am very interested in your take on the culture of the festivals, what you wish you could alter about it, and why or why not you might do so… i do hope you will elaborate. if not here, to me sometime when we chat.