Burning Man, Revamping Health, and Rethinking Impact

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🌵Burning Man 2022

I recently returned from my second visit to Burning Man, and I've felt some pressure to come away with compelling takeaways. In part, that's because my experience in 2018 had such a profoundly positive impactful on my life.

But my main takeaway from this year is quite simple – create more time and space for having fun.

The reality is that I disappeared into the desert for 7 days, hung out with awesome people, and enjoyed myself. And in doing so, I returned home feeling very calm and happy about all that life has provided so far.

If I've taken anything from this year's Burn, it's how having fun in an unfettered way is a powerful antidote for many of life's stressors and concerns. I wonder how many people who feel overwhelmed by life need a few days of doing something they really enjoy without thinking too much.

This year, I also spent more time thinking about what makes Burning Man such a unique and special experience for people. A few thoughts:

It's takes work to go. From getting tickets, to finding a camp, to preparing to survive in the desert for 7 days, it's surprisingly difficult to get to Burning Man. But all of that time spent planning and organizing is not a burden; it seems to enhance the experience.

It's filled with amazing art. Burning Man is about art more than anything. There are wonderful pieces that range from commentary on trends in society to playgrounds for adults on psychedelic trips to spaces for people to mourn and appreciate life. The attendees – who are endlessly creative with their costumes and transportation vessels – are also the art.

There is no money exchanged. Burning Man operates on a gifting economy, so you give and you receive, and there is no money involved. Living in this type of environment is analogous to going to a new country that operates very differently from your home country. There is a lot of value in seeing how society can be organized differently and still function.

People become their weirdest, best selves. Most people are kind, dressed like aliens, and do things that they would never do in the "default world." The Burn is a safe space to test the limits of who you are.

You can only do 1% of what's offered. Burning Man has endless workshops, parties, art, and cool events to explore. Part of enjoying your experience is overcoming FOMO and accepting that you can only do a small fraction of what's being offered. This is part of why so many people return.

People take the values seriously. If you're wearing a logo, leave trash on the ground, or act like an ass, you will be called out. Most burners live by and enforce the 10 principles in a pretty cool way.

If possible, I think everyone should go to this event at least once.

🏋️‍♂️ Improving Health

Most of what I know about health and fitness came from what I learned when I started bodybuilding as a teenager. That knowledge helped me stay relatively fit and healthy in my 20s, but of late, I've been interested in how I can update some of my beliefs to fill in knowledge gaps and prepare for the later decades of life.

In 2022, I've been on a bender of revamping my health and fitness knowledge. And through basic improvements in nutrition, workout consistency, sleep quality, etc, I'm certainly in a better place than when I started the year. In a future newsletter, I'll share some of the key things I've learned so far.

Over the next month, my plan is to try to put on 6 pounds of lean muscle while improving my energy levels, flexibility, endurance, and surfing strength.

I'll be following a fairly simple exercise / lifestyle protocol:

• 10-15 minutes of sunlight upon waking

• Future Fitness HIIT / mobility workout 2x/week

• Surf as often as life allows

• Supplemental weight training 1-2x/week

• Daily stretching focused on hips and lower/upper back

• 7-8 hours of daily high-quality sleep

My supplements will include:

• 750mg DHA/EPA daily

• 5mg creatine daily

• 25g-50g of whey protein daily

• Electrolytes + Athletic Greens as necessary

• Experiments with Alpha CPG for focus

I'll be tracking my habits and energy levels daily by hand, my weight weekly, and my sleep with an Oura ring. I also do bloodwork every 6 months to measure a suite of biomarkers.

I'll share my findings in 1 month and some broader learnings from the research and experiments I've done throughout the year.

Obviously, none of what I say is medical advice and/or a recommendation for you to try anything that I'm doing. I'm just a guy on the internet trying to improve his own health and sharing what I'm learning along the way.

⛳️ Rethinking Impact

I started calvinrosser.com 5 years ago to help 10 million people live a more fulfilling life. Between the blog, podcast, scholarships, etc, nearly 2 million people will interact with my work in 2022 alone.

That's a good start, but I really see these first few years as the early innings of a lifelong pursuit to share what I'm learning with people who want to follow along. And while I'm stoked about my reach in the digital world, I've been itching to have a more "tangible" impact on the world.

As much as I love receiving kind emails from readers, I'm most energized when I'm interacting with people in "real life." So I've been looking for avenues where I can give more of my time and energy in the physical world.

As a starting point, I partnered with the Boys & Girls Club this fall to be the golf coach for a local middle school. So far, it's been very rewarding.

I played golf growing up, and the game has a special place in my heart. It kept me out of trouble, taught me good values, and showed me the value of dedicating yourself to a craft. It's been great to to reignite my relationship with the game and to help kids who are also interested in the sport.

It's my first time being a sports coach, and I'm excited to learn how I can improve in my role for the kids on the team. My thesis is that the most important thing is to make sure everyone feels supported and has fun.

If you've ever coached a youth sports team, I'm open for any tips!

📚 What I'm Reading

Call me a simple man, but I can't get enough of Hemingway. This week, I started reading The Sun Also Rises, the 1926 novel that put Hemingway on the map. I'm not sure how much I learn from his books, but I find a lot of pleasure in his simple and honest prose. So for now, the Hemingway bender continues.

I spent a weekend in Taos, New Mexico – a beautiful place with suspiciously friendly people. On our way to the Ojo Caliente hot springs, we passed by Los Alamos, which is where the atomic bomb was developed in the 1940s. To learn more about that odd time in history and the discovery of a weapon that has difficult moral consequences, I started listening to American Prometheus. It's the biography of Oppenheimer, the nuclear physicist who ran the lab that developed the first atomic bomb.

— Cal

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