I've never been to Burning Man but for a few years I was heavily into meditation, dabbled in psychadelics, and was reading Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, a

I've never been to Burning Man but for a few years I was heavily into meditation, dabbled in psychadelics, and was reading Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, and any other mind-expanding literature I could get my hands on. I get the sense Burning Man used to attract people like my younger self. From my Facebook and Instagram feeds, I now see many startup scenesters I know attending. If I want know, I feel I'd have to be much more careful to suppress my "weird" side. I can understand why the original attendees feel the event has become too diluted to be appealing. Not having been, I don't know, but from a distance it looks like a pattern I've seen play out in other communities. One thing I've noticed is that many people who are genuinely cool, interesting, curious, adventurous and so on, don't see themselves that way at all - and many people who see themselves as cool and creative are in reality vapid and shallow.