An endless fiesta would be exhausting and demoralizing: the pleasure would go out of it, the masks would disguise only fatigue and apathy, and there would eventually be nothing to celebrate. The ordinary and the extraordinary need each other, or rather everyday life needs to be interrupted from time to time—which is not to say that we need disaster, only that it sometimes supplies the interruption in which the other work of society is done. Carnival and revolution are likewise interruptions of everyday life, but their point is to provide something that allows you to return to that life with more power, more solidarity, more hope. -- Rebecca Solnit, Paradise Built in Hell
At temporary events like Burning Man and Dragonfest I've often heard someone say something like "We should create a community where we do this year round." This quote refutes the idea much more eloquently than I have.
