Sparing a moment for MOOP

Another experience in my time in the Chattahoochee National Forest concerned MOOP, and it was a bummer. MOOP is a Burning Man acronym that stands for “matter out of place.” One of the principles of Burning Man is “Leave No Trace,” or LNT, and (most) burners are fanatical about it. It’s wonderful. Burning Man is held on a federally-owned dry lake bed, and after each Burning Man, the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM; it manages most of the federal land west of the Mississippi) does a thorough inspection of the site for anything left behind whatsoever, and it uses the assessment to inform whether Burning Man can return the next year. So not only is LNT the right thing to do, but the very existence of the Big Burn depends on doing a fantastic job. Good burners are constantly sweeping the entire area for anything on the ground, including feathers, zip ties, cooking oil, cigarette ash, everything (no, you cannot even go to the bathroom on the ground).

I like the concept of MOOP, because it’s based on the idea that no item is inherently bad or “rubbish.” It’s just that everything has its place. Some things’ place happens to be landfill. Pee’s place is in the porto-potty. Glitter’s place is at home, because only evil people bring glitter to Burning Man (GTFO of here with your bio-degradable nonsense). The same idea applies in the rest of the world. A cigarette butt on the sidewalk in New York City is arguably not MOOP, because NYC is a dirty town. That same butt in a national park is definitely MOOP.

My duty (as should be yours) is to turn MOOP into MIP (a term that I may be the only one to use, as far as I know). Easy.

But I tell you, seeing so much MOOP (dare I say… garbage) in the Chattahoochee National Forest, way out in the middle of nowhere, was pretty disheartening to say the least. Dismaying and angering, to say a bit more. It was a 2.5 mile hike there and back, and I collected a whole shopping bag of trash without even taking more than a few steps off the trail.

A napkin here, and lost child’s sock there, I can understand. I drop things without noticing; it’s fine. But the vast majority of items, many of which were too far off the trail for me to retrieve safely, were beer cans and the like. Items whose provenance I cannot help but imagining to be some bro gleefully throwing his empty can as far as he can muster without hurting his brain thinking about it too hard. The thought sickens me. Midway through the hike, there was a fire pit area where there were empty foil catering trays, water bottles, an empty orange juice container, and more. People clearly had a great time having their brunch in the woods, blithely ignoring the fact that their own presence in this context, people such as they are, was MOOP. Sorry, it just riles me up, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

The best I can do about it is to honor those feelings of dismay and disgust within me. Honor them, but then release them and submit to my duty. My duty in this situation was to retrieve a plastic bag that I happened to have in my pack and to turn the MOOP into MIP. Once I’ve honored my feelings (and also perhaps honored my feelings of superiority), I’m able to simply accept my duty and accept the power that I do have over the situation. And stripped of the anger and dismay, the actual task of seeking and picking up MOOP is an enjoyable and meditative one.

It’s important for me to identify what is in my power, to honor my feelings, and to act dutifully and with dignity. I probably cannot create large-scale change in the world or in people, but I do hope that my actions may have broader repercussions than I know. Maybe someone saw me picking up MOOP and decided to pick up a bottle themselves. Maybe a less-MOOPy trail will cause the next would-be MOOPer bro to think twice before MOOPing his empty. Or maybe he won’t. That’s not in my power.