On my first Ozora in 2012 everything was new to me - the place, the people, the experience. From my regular life at home I wasn't quite used to random people communicating with one another in mutual respect and taking care of each other like friends would.
Never mind the fact that we were all strangers to one another here ;)
I remember walking down to the mainfloor in the afternoon and ahead of me I could see a ripped plastic bottle lying on the ground. It was odd, seeing that bottle lie there felt... personal. It's not like I threw it there myself but somehow I felt responsible.
So I decided to simply pick it up and throw it in the nearest trash bag before thinking it over too long. There was no point thinking, the job seemed clear and I simply did it. There, done!
After a while I had gotten so used to not overthinking things that I would go on irregular cleaning tours around the festival whenever I felt prompted. It's not like the festival was particularly dirty, especially compared to some of the rock festivals I had visited in earlier years. But still whenever it called me I would go pick up trash and throw it away as if it were my own.
And while my mind was trying to portray it all as "mere coincidence" I had the nagging suspicion that as the week progressed more and more people started picking up trash randomly and that that was in part due to my decision on the first day to not ignore that plastic bottle inviting me to throw it out. It's not like I started it all, probably not. But I did help that idea spread for sure when people observed me.
You never know who might be watching... At least until you re-discover your forgotten antennas of course
As with many other experiences since then, in places with heightened awareness and the aim of consciousness-exploration, certain themes, ideas and... callings tend to spread like a virus. In my first year this did seem too good to be true (for my rational mind) but the more I went back in the following years the more I noticed that this idea has merit.
On a worldly level you could simply say: There are new people at the festival every year, and during a certain period in the first days newcomers will observe the "standards" of their new social environment carefully and start acting in accord with it. Witnessing the unwritten and non-enforced laws of the scene and adopting them, voluntarily.
When I found myself amongst 25 hippies on the last day by the mainfloor, picking up random trash randomly with a smile in our faces and chatting to the official cleaning crew that was picking up trash alongside of us visitors... I really saw how important being a role model is to our fellow human beings. And how much can be accomplished if the one who feels prompted takes the initiative.
Other years we were not strong enough to establish a clean template, and after 4 days or so everyone is so settled in that introducing a new wave of behavior can come too late for the idea to find fertile ground to grow on. And of course, picking up trash is merely an example. I have done this with many behavioral patterns such as sharing the food I didn't finish with other people in line, giving all my water away to someone thirsty and simply getting new water myself, etc.
Not only do you not mind doing favors for "strangers", it becomes quite addicting and it automatically establishes itself to a new standard simply because so many people watch and copy this behavior in the knowledge that their kindness and vulnerability will not be taken advantage of in this environment. Human swarm intelligence at its best.
Yap, he is watching you and learning. All the time.
So, when you know that people (and especially kids) are watching you, and a piece of trash in the environment catches your attention: pick it up. It will be their ultimate permission slip to do so themselves and to feel like it is "a normal thing around here", which sets off an avalanche of behavioral shifts all of which come from voluntary choice not from someone telling other people what to do.
You have no idea how fast and far that tiny little action can go within human societies, and what an enabling impulse it can be to those still learning the in's and out's of life on Earth within a specific setting. And far beyond.
All photos in this article are mere impressions and don't generally show the actual people involved in these stories.
All images by my dear friend Andrea @ truehumanity.eu
