Fire is Light and Warmth

I’m watching Rescue Dawn, the part where they’re all working together to light a fire with brush, sticks & elbow grease. This is right before they tie Christian Bale to a tree and start firing pot shots at him. Waste of ammo. Christian Bale is BATMAN, and cannot be stopped with mere bullets.

So, maybe I’m confusing movies.

In any case, lighting that fire sure looks like a lot of effort. And what does fire get you? Light and warmth. When I come home, I turn on the lights, and adjust the temperature to a comfortable level. Yes, this is decadent. (It would be MORE decadent if Christian Bale was still involved, but you can’t have everything.) But it’s also easy.

Climate control and electricity came with the house. They come with a lot of houses these days. I don’t even have a gas stove anymore (which is good, because when I did, the cats turned it on at night because when you’re a cat, homicide is fun).

The only interaction with fire that I have these days (knock wood) is when I want to make the air more fragrant with a Yankee Candle, or in case there are some secret intelligence reports that need to be destroyed.

You might know about Prometheus. He was a Titan, and apparently an old softie, because in the Greek myths he defied the gods and gave fire to mankind. He was given two punishments: a sister-in-law and he had to have his liver ripped out painfully each night, after which it would regenerate, for the next night.

We’ve come a long way from the days were having fire was worth risking torture or in-laws. Fire is not the only amenity we’ve grown used to.

I’m not advocating that we go back to the drawing board. We’ve made advances in civilization that I would not give up willingly. I’m typing this entry on one of them.

But have we taken things too far? If we were suddenly blasted back to the start, maybe through warfare, or continued environmental devastation, could we rise to the occasion? Who would survive? Who would you want to survive? Could you?

Image Credit: Batman, cat, Prometheus, & Thomas Cole’s Desolation, from the Course of Empire series.

Music Credit: REM’s The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)