Ben Coe

I realize that the “system” (society) has it all wrong in at least one way. The system indoctrinates us to be fearful and play it safe, to just get a job, to squirrel away money. By design it wants us to do a small part and then to sit back idly while enjoying television. It doesn’t want us to do more on a daily basis. Then some day when many days like this have passed there will be enough that we can sip on our savings throughout the rest of life as long as the system continues to be stable.

The very nature of this system implies that there isn’t enough. The value it proposes is saving – to spend little and save as much as possible.

The problem is that it’s looking at it all backwards. It’s looking at our capital as the man-made financial capital. What it isn’t taking into account is the unlimited amount of capital, true capital, you have brewing inside – your personal energy. This is the capital that is all yours while you’re alive on this planet.

In my own experience, I have found that the more I spend in terms of real capital, personal energy, the more I get back in return. The more I push myself away from fear and playing it safe, the greater the personal reward. The more I push myself to CREATE, the more people notice my work and appreciate it. I mean, you can just feel this. Think back to the last time you really threw caution to the wind and did that thing you just love to do. People can see it on your face. And no matter how much energy you were putting into it, you had an unlimited amount more to give even if you were tired. The feeling of squirreling away is the opposite of this. It isn’t the feeling that makes you come alive. The feeling that makes you come alive is saying “Fuck it, I’ve got to do this thing!”

So, to hell with the old way. Down with the old system of being scared and cautious and living life to squirrel away. Instead, I say reach deep down inside and find something you want to pour energy into… something that will make you come alive and then just throw caution to the wind. Spend all the personal energy you have on it! Spend it all! Then spend some more! Because you know what?! You’re not going to run out. The more you create, the more you will have. And the more you have, the more we all have. It seems paradoxical but you’ll find it to be true.

Be patient and stay true to your course
even if at this point you don’t know what it will yield
to know that you are walking the path you need to walk
to know that you are clearing the brush
uncovering your secret path
and eventually, by staying true to this calling,
you will go exactly where you need to go.

I’ve been amazed by how much love and respect one man has generated. And this love for a CEO of a massive corporation at a time when corporations are loathed and protested against. It proves to me that even when building something at a large scale, you can imbue your products, culture, and message with love and attention. It must be incredibly hard to keep that pure, but it can obviously be done. I can’t think of another business leader who will garner this much admiration on passing from this earth. Well, I join the ranks and raise a glass to you Steve Jobs. Thank you for making technology beautiful and awe inspiring.
**

“That’s been one of my mantras: focus and simplicity,” Jobs told Businessweek in 1998. “Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

For you I will build a campfire
I will outfit my backpack and carry it through the day
I will share my water, hat, and empty space
I will even share my special treat

I will show you what I have seen
and bear my excitement
I will expose my emotions
and converse from my soul without fear

Your power and energy
cycle powerfully within you, it is your source
and yet it magically feeds me as well
just by being near it

On a normal day
you are so strong it just surrounds you
and is made available for others to pick up

So on the off days when you are down-
a part of the natural cycle
I will provide for you
I will listen and help you up because it is not hard
because you have given me so much on the other days

You live life like a flame
beautiful and bright and lighting the world on fire.
Colors and patterns dancing about
Magically

I love you and want this for you
because I know that you are me as well.

~

P.S I’m talking to *you*

i am a man that feels a deep connection to an ancient past. That feels the river of history flowing through me. Though I appreciate what we’ve done here in modern times, it is not that which guides me. It is the timeless, the connection to the deepness. I feel myself in a cave with candle light and making cave paintings.

Rituals… I can feel the need for them and sadly they are largely missing from my life. They need to come back in. I have felt this before. But how do i create ritual that invites others to go deep as well?

Perhaps this is a call that others feel, possibly unknowingly. And perhaps our answer to it is Burning Man. Possibly that is why it was created and why it continues. Burning Man is the tribal ritual, the beckoning for individuals to go deeper, to gather around a campfire and to go deep and in that space to create possibilities for ourselves and those around us. The participation is the crucible through which we change. To challenge yourself by putting yourself in a harsh climate without showers, to stay up late, to dance around fire, to plot and plan for months for this journey, to sacrifice your money and time off – all seemingly insurmountable challenges and yet so many walk the gauntlet. It is modern tribalism surfacing in the United States – a manifestation of the deepness.

Burning Man does not live quietly because it speaks to a timelessness and depth that lives within each of us. And once awakened within it’s like the need for water. It’s been creeping up to the surface through the years and just now it is finding how to exist within modern society. It is miraculously alive. It has manifest in Burning Man and now encourages all of us to do the same elsewhere – whether it be in our small towns, our social circles, or our work. Burning Man is nothing more than a place that exists within each of us, almost entirely hidden to most of us, but when it is found… look out!

Tap the underground river of life, the throbbing source of energy.
Tap it and drink straight from it.

Do not be encumbered by the “Society Layer.”
We must not be afraid of life in it’s raw form.