I've been looking for a place to write about Flatoberfest, and nothing felt right at the time. My desire to only surround myself with online venues focused on more academic pursuits kind of kills my desire to just share things openly. And so far I have yet to figure out if that's good or not.
But seeing as I gave a sincere effort to try blogging on this site (well Steemit) many moons ago, it feels right to continue that effort here and now. But now, onto Flatoberfest!
Eve of the Festival
2 or 3 photographers got some great shots of about half of the attendees in front of this great sign they paid for. For some reason none of those photos have been posted. Weird.
So my history with the town in which this was held, Spartanburg, goes back to the summer of 1995. It was my childhood home until 2004 or so, and all of my positive childhood memories come from that area. Bu, as many of us have experienced, my post high school depression went deep and I felt too ashamed to ever keep in touch or visit the place. So returning to these spots for the first time in 15+ years was a bit of an emotional breakthrough. Most of these challenges I've sorted out since 2016 or so, and yet it was still interesting.
So I arrived on the scene in the middle of the afternoon on that Friday. I'd read through the website again, and thought I knew everything I needed to know. Upon my arrival however, I realized I hadn't considered what to do if I got there early. My AirBnB wasn't ready, I didn't have any solid points of contact, or know what anyone's plans were. So I started combing through things online, made this instagram post hoping someone would message me from it. Turns out though, things were much less stressful than that.
Out of curiosity, I eventually wandered over to the Marriott, where a mixture of guests were talking inside and out around the patio behind the place. I was just psyching myself up to go ask a random person about those crazy Flat Earthers, when I heard some comment about tin foil hats. This was my crowd!
Introduced myself to a few people there, and awkwardly piddled around a bit. But the moment someone rallied us to go get a group photo, the conversations began and didn't end until I had to tear myself away from the group around 10:30pm. It was only day one after all!
Ironically the first full day was the least interesting of them all, and it was still great. Meeting so many like minds on the first evening though, was hard to beat. By the time I left I had a huge list on my phone of random names, people to follow, and books to read.
Highlights
Each one of 3 big meals with a group of 7 people. The perfect number for great conversations.
A great 10 minute conversation with Marty Leeds.
Karen B's attempt to have a single's event parallel to this. It was clever and well done, just lacking the right ratio of genders, haha. Nonetheless a fun concept that I hope to see more of.
Despite the largest demographic being men of all ages, there were an incredible number of families there. To me, that was incredibly uplifting.
The fact that there were so many men, was a great outcome. You can meet other men at gyms, church groups, and a few other places, and it can still be a challenge to form lasting friendships. Here though, we all got along, and friendships were easy to start making.
The way anyone could bring up any topic of conversation, and everyone was open to any direction that conversation could go. While 20% of the people there may have had there minds so open to almost be a fault, most were incredibly grounded.
To The Next Thing!
Everyone wants their own community, and this event really rekindled my own desire to be involved in the local community. So I am going full steam ahead, trying to figure out how a broke 28 year old can make a living by connecting and adding value to the already existent community of truth seekers in the Piedmont of North Carolina. There are so many of us here (if Dave's app is a reliable metric), we are just so disjointed.
So here's to a strong close to the year, to more meetups in the future, and to a better world for everyone, cheers!!
PS, if any Carolinians or Virginians are reading this, head to PiedmontNons.top, take care!