User:Enjoispammy8/Burning life

What is It?
Burning Life is a festival of community, art, and fire in the virtual world of Second Life. Burning Life borrows inspiration from its real life counter-part, known as the Burning Man Event which is also a community based art and fire festival held anually in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada .Much like Burning Man, Burning Life serves as an opportunity for learning and growth and to form a community that values learning and growth.

History
In 1999, a man by the name of Philip Linden decided to attend that year's Burning Man festival for his first time in the middle of "The Playa", geologists called it. "The Playa", otherwise known as an ancient and dried-out lakebed in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, is so shockingly barren that it "begs" to be your empty canvas. What Linden saw was the spontaneous erection of a city by people who collaborativly designed their own reality, the centerpeice of which was a 40-foot tall anthropomorphic wooden statue destined to be burned the last night of the event. Inspired by this accoplishment, Linden planned to incorporate this idea of spontaneous creation on a blank canvas directly into his project "Linden World" which is now known as the virtual world of Second Life. As of 2003 numerous Linden Lab employees were regulars at Burning Man, but by 2003 they were too busy getting Second Life out the door to visit the real life Playa. So in response Pheonix Linden appraoched the Burning Man organization to obtain the permission to make a tribute to Burning Man in Second Life. With permission duly granted, the Lindens built a Man statue much like the real thing, and "burned" it in-world. While Phoneix Linden (and Haney Linden)- started the Burning Life event, other Lindens facilitated over the years: Hamlet, Torley, Jeska, Iridium, and Everett. In 2007 issues with the founding principles of Burning Life had become damaging to Burning Life's reputation because of a lack of involvement by the Lindens, as they were too busy to be directly involved in the event. So Second Life residents who had no Burning Man experience were running Burning Life. In response to the threat against Burning Life's priniples. So in 2008 Linden Labs began hiring veteren Burners (regular Burning Man attendees) to help restore the principles which founded Burning Man and Burning Life. Beginning in 2010, Linden Lab experienced a sharp downsizing, and ownership of Burning Life was transformed from a partnership between Burning Man and Linden Lab into an entirely regional Burning Man event that would be held in Second Life. This change was considered a win-win, as Linden Lab was focusing on it's core business and technology, and less on suplementary activities, while Burning Man wanted a higher fidelity representation in Second Life. The most recent Burning Life event, now known as Burn 2, demonstrated successfully that Burn 2 community is established and viable.