Fire!

I've been thinking about fire recently, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I heard a man on the radio a few weeks back talking about his inability to sleep and he suggested that perhaps it was ingrained, genetic even. His thought was that he was somehow programmed to be the guy who would stay up all night and watch the fire. My own inability to sleep made that resonate with me. Maybe I'm just not supposed to be sleeping at night; perhaps I too am the guy who should be up all night making sure the fire doesn't burn out, then when daylight comes, I go and sleep in a cave. The second reason is that I've just moved into a new home. It has a fireplace. Our ancestors survival was very much predicated on their ability to control and maintain fire...for warmth, cooking, light, protection, and so forth. This was the case well into the last century before the advent of electric or gas heating and is still the case for much of the world. But in our modern, western society, not so. Fire is now for many of us a luxury. And a luxury that doesn't even require the skill of fire building at that. In my new place, I turn the fire on by the flick of a light switch. It's all about atmosphere. Is this what has become of homo sapiens struggle for survival? I guess we won. I'm not really complaining, but I'd be lying if I said that there isn't a part of me that longs for that other way.