Why is fire so hypnotic? Hours evaporate whenever I sit before a burning log. I stare and stare like it’s my favorite television show. Perhaps it’s something hardwired and limbic that’s magnetized by the uneasy combination of sustenance and danger. Maybe it’s an ancestral memory of bearing witness through the night while tending to the flames. A friend suggested we’re attracted to fire because it moves upwards, a rare phenomenon that defies gravity.
The desire to bear witness is a noble urge that’s been hijacked and warped by our screens. But sitting here tonight and watching the embers burn, I have no desire to look at the news or refresh my feeds. Monitoring headlines and scrolling through the opinions of strangers seems like a ludicrous way to spend my limited time on the planet. Yet I already know this clarity will fade.
