The campfire.
No preservatives. No additives. Just an all natural warmth that permeates the whole body.
Stories, heroic exploits, scary tales, warmth, memories, and camaraderie have been shared around a campfire since time immemorial.
Great peace and serenity have been found while gazing into a campfire.
Many great ideas have been conceived and life altering plans have been made around a campfire.
Other than the night sky, fire was the only source of light in the dark.
Religious and spiritual ceremonies were performed with fire holding some form of meaning. Thanks has been given for the trees that were once a living thing, but became a source of light and heat.
Maybe at times those glowing embers evoked curiosity and inspiration.
We will never know, but I like to think that in times past, those same flames inspired thoughts of a new or different way.
Whatever it was, fire wasn't something to only stare into mindlessly.
At the very least, fire was a source of life that, without, none of us would probably be here.
As I sat gazing into my campfire, watching the flames dance and the embers glow, I began to wonder...
Electricity, as far as the history of humankind goes, is a very new invention. We are accustomed to it now because it is what we know and what we are comfortable with.
Today many people just gaze into a fire and become hypnotized by the dance of the flames. But campfires haven't always been used just to keep the bugs away, or for warmth on a cold night.
While our technology has advanced, our biology has not changed.
We are still the same people who gathered around a campfire to contemplate and to strategize and to socialize with our tribes. But within a matter of a few generations our technology, along with our comforts, increased dramatically and we took that which was permeating and in the fire we forged something disparate and void.
New and different ideas rarely burned long enough to see the light of day as they were extinguished by the skeptics and the stubborn.
In many instances strategizing had become just a flicker and was likely to be replaced by hyperbole, pretentiousness, and knee-jerk reactions.
Camaraderie had been melted away by distrust, enmity, and hostility.
Ceremony was left withered by discord and impoliteness.
Peace and serenity was consumed by noise and anxiety.
Heroic exploits were scorched and blackened by fear and indecision.
Curiosity was reduced to ashes by pessimism, disinterest, and the unconcerned.
Inspiration and encouragement were incinerated by excuses, denial, and the unimportant.
The campfire is still here, in a sense, but today that fire is the digital glow from our screens.
In this new fire everything dissolved into individualism and left us feeling more divided, detached, isolated and alone, than ever.
Rather than gaze into this fire to contemplate life, we gaze into this fire to escape life. Rather than being hypnotized by the dancing flames and having it take us into a deeper state of reflection and contemplation, we are just hypnotized by the images and words that dance in this fire. We can spend hours staring mindlessly into these glowing embers just to pass the time.
We are all the keepers of our own campfire.
What fuel are you using to feed it?
Stoke your fire!
Pic by - Coffee And A Map
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