I was out for a walk last night at around 10, and came across -out of pure coincidence - a big apartment fire on Oak Bay Avenue! The top floor of a building, right across from Garden Works, was up in smoke; fire trucks lined the street and residents from the building and elsewhere were gathered around to watch the show... and what a show!

I like a good fire. It's primal. I listened to all the people around, as they seemed to be 'giving reasons' to themselves and others for why they were standing there watching... analyzing the job of the fire fighters, talking about how the fire spreads, making phone calls and relating themselves to the one or two people they know who live in the building, and so forth. But they're all really there to watch a little bit of destruction. Our society is so well-built, so carefully shaped right from the buildings to the services to the educations and right up to our minds, that it's pleasing - at least occasionally - to see a little bit of it crumble. A little bit of the mind burns with the rooftop. It reminds me, anyway, of our species' spear-flinging, meat-eating, battle-crying, cave-and-forest-dwelling origin... distant ancestors staring at rising flames, flames that meant light, warmth, safety, and power!

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