On modernity and the concealment of fire

I’ve always been interested in the elements. Not the periodical table per se, but our ancestral understanding of the elements: earth, wind, water, and fire. Scientists tell us that earth is made up of a complex mixture of elements each with their own mass, which translates into rocks, dirt, and mountains. Fire, we are told, is nothing but a chemical process where elements re-configure and release energy in the form of heat. Looking culturally however over the past 100 years we’ve drastically changed our relationship and thus our shared sense of meaning around ‘fire’. This renegotiation of fire may explain some of the debates around climate change and the future of energy.

Fire to our ancestors seemed to have an intrinsic power to devour physical material, but also provide life-giving heat. Its no wonder that complex cultural practices then (just as  now – think bbq), revolved around fire. For example, the Aztecs performed their New Fire ceremony once every 52 years in order to stave off the end of the world. In fact, the ‘New’ Fire ceremonies were performed before the rise of the Aztec empire suggesting that the Aztecs had inherited the ceremony from much earlier civilizations of central Mexico. In these ceremonies, fire was something to both befriend and fear. A delicate balance; a duality.

Controlling fire, on one hand, is essentially what it means to be human. British primatologist Richard Wrangham in his book ‘Catching Fire: How Cooking Made us Human‘ argues that cooking food was an essential element in the physiological evolution of human beings. Controlling fire and using it to cook allowed humans to evolve differently than other primates. However, examples of fire’s destructive capabilities extend throughout human history. Most famously is the case of the Ancient Library of Alexandria. In its time, it was one of the largest and most significant libraries of antiquity. It was a major center for scholarship since its creation in the 3rd century with collections of works, lecture halls, meeting rooms, and gardens, where many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world studied. The library famously burned, resulting in the loss of many scrolls and books, and has become a symbol of the destruction of cultural knowledge. Incalculable amounts of knowledge kept on papyrus scrolls and books lost in an instant. What is more, nearly every major world city has been at one point ravaged by fire. The frequency of its power to both benefit and destroy kept constant in the minds of humans through the ages.

Today, the reality and duality of fire is being renegotiated. Nowhere is this more clear than the climate debates. Technological developments and efficiency gains over the past 100 years have allowed humans to burn fossil fuels at a rate unimaginable only a few generations ago. The amount of energy created unleashes many and more of us from natural, spatial limits; we no longer depend on burning biomass created recently, but eons of biomass since the Earth was made. New industries and professions are made possible, and economic growth, if shared quasi-equally, has led to prosperous societies. Yet, unintentionally burning fossil fuels is very likely to be leading to a changing climate by disrupting the carbon cycle. Greenhouse gases trap heat, warming the planet. Rather than Alexandria alone burning, the planet is warming and the consequences may be globally devastating.

Taking a step back, what differs between our prehistoric relationship with fire and today is that we may have blindly overemphasized the positives of fire while forgetting or ignoring the devastating power it wields. But how did this happen?

I believe that twentieth century modernity was essentially about the control and the concealment of fire. Firstly, by believing we had fully controlled the power of fire and mitigated or reduced its destructive consequences, we believed that we have finally freed ourselves from worldly boundaries. Rockets to the moon! Secondly, modernity is about the systematic concealment of fire away from public perception and comprehension. In his book Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930, Hughes explains how prior to the 1920s, Edison direct-current systems were characterized by small generators that were housed in dispersed locations. From about 1890 until World War I, the major electric power utilities concentrated on supplying the most heavily populated and industrialized urban centers by creating the vision of a ‘universal system’ of supply. The universal system aimed at interconnecting characteristics of many independent and heterogeneous power stations. In short, the story of our modern fossil fuel energy system is how we moved from a decentralized, regionally based energy supply towards a modern, centralized system where fossil fuels are extracted faraway, traded, and combusted in gigantic power plants on the outskirts of everything. Too distance, too large of an operation  for any one individual to sensually grasp. With fewer and less devastating outbreaks of devastating fire, little reminds us of society’s reliance on it. In the matter of a generation, the benefits of electric light were realized, fire was concealed, and the destructive power of fire forgotten.

What is more curious is that many people today do have close interactions with fire on a daily basis, though like electricity production, they go unnoticed. The daily commute, trip to the market, or long summer road trip by automobile all rely on fire. Yet, fire here too is concealed and internalized with the advent of the internal combustion engine. Thus, our primeval experience with fire has been limited to a flick of the switch or a turn of key – departed from our consciousness. Only the family’s outdoor grill sparks a remembrance of fire, though clearly in a protected area.

In fact, the culturally produced forgetfulness of fire may explain why some peoples have such a palpable aversion to renewable and nuclear energy. Unlike fire, something we have experience with controlling and concealing, renewable energy is free and flexible and highly visible on landscapes. So called Nimbies (Not in my backyard) is a characterization of people in opposition to a proposals for a new development because it is close and visible to them, often with the connotation that such residents believe that the developments are needed in society but should be further away. The newness they experience and rally against is the uncontrollability and visibility of renewable energy, which is the opposite of our control and concealment of fire. Nuclear energy differs as it creates energy without the use of fire rather tearing apart atoms and using the residual heat to create steam and turn turbines. Psychologically, nuclear energy parallels with concepts of control and concealment of fire but differs largely in the perception of risk, control and consequences of nuclear failure.

Looking forward, humans will be always faced with the duality of fire. We would be wise to rebalanced our understanding and reverence of it.

The Fish Lake Episode

In the summer of 2001, Craig and I decided to go backpacking for a few days near Wolf Creek. I was dead set on hiking to Fish Lake to catch some trout; who wouldn’t want to hike to a mountain lake called Fish Lake? I suspected a 4 hour hike, though admittedly the last section did look a bit steep. I bought the topo maps and packed my gear, and early one morning Craig and I and my dog Farlo headed for the hills.

 

All started very well. It was sunny and warm high mountain day. We found the trailhead no problem and Farlo was running around like an escaped zoo animal. After strapping on the backpacks, we headed down the trail in high spirits.

 

Shortly afterwards we came across a stream flowing from right to left and a sign pointing downstream to Fish Lake. I thought this was absurd. How can the path to Fish Lake follow downstream the brook that flows out of the high altitude Fish Lake. It can’t! We have to ignore the sign and hike up stream to get to Fish Lake. Convincingly I explained my logic to Craig who was quick to agree (we are both culprits in my version of the story).

 

A few hours and a tough uphill switchback climb later, we reached the top of ridge and realized our mistake. We were hiking in the wrong direction towards another lake. Ah, we laughed and shrugged it off. It happens to everyone. We were still laughing after we returned to the site of our original mistake and followed the correct path. Onwards to Fish Lake.

 

After about an hour of hiking (now 7 hours total) we left the brook and started heading uphill. On cue, the weather turned and we had to break out the camouflage rain gear. Later, we spooked some horseback riders as we emerged from the bushes but they recovered and we asked them how long to Fish Lake. One rider looked at us puzzled, looked at his friend, and back at us. Never a good sign, I thought. He said, ‘you have about a 6 hour steep uphill climb from here to Fish Lake’.

 

Preposterous I thought. Silly people on their horses have no concept of time. The whole hike, if you will remember, was only supposed to take 4 hours. Despite our long detour, we should still only have 2 -3 hours left. I convinced Craig we should keep going, ‘I bet the fish are already jumping!’ We continued to climb up the trail.

 

The next scene is the closest I can think of what it would have been like to survive the Bataan Death March, or the Trail of Tears. Farlo, who had probably doubled the distance we had walked since he ran everywhere, would run ahead, fall asleep and wait for us to catch up. The day turned to dusk and the rain didn’t let up. At hour 10 of hiking, I felt like I was going to pass out. My feet hurt, everything hurt. We walked in silence wondering how far the other was willing to go.  Finally, as darkness was approaching and we had seen no sign of the ‘last steep section’ we decided we had to stop. Our first good decision of the day. We made camp and fell asleep immediately, save for the trail mix in our bellies.

 

The next morning we woke and broke camp very slowly and stiffly. Farlo obviously wanted to go home. However, we continued up the trail, which got very very steep. What we expected to be an hour hike to the lake was like a false summit. An hour turned into two, then multiplied to four! Finally, after lunch sometime we made it to Fish Lake well above tree line. Not a fish to be seen.

 

Later when we were home and happy to have survived, my Dad asked the very reasonable question of why, when we realized our initial mistake and hiked the wrong direction, didn’t we just continue for 30 minutes and camp out at the other lake? Very reasonable, I thought with irritation.  ‘But never’, I said, ‘underestimate the collective brain power of Neil and Craig’. Who, I must point out are now both doctors.

 

  

 

   

The Fire

It began with a crackle and pop from the backyard. We hear the sound while we were considering annihilating a colony of ants pouring out of a crack in the driveway leading to my mother´s garage with a M60 firecracker. A similar explosion startled us again when the sound came from the other side of the house, and we tentatively went to investigate.

It was July, a very hot and dry month in northern New Mexico, and it goes without saying that firecrackers were hard to come by. Every year a city wide ban limited the supply of legal fireworks. Despite the ban, small fires annually consumed property and houses while larger uncontrollable wildfires would consume whole pine beetle ridden forests in the nearby mountains. Even though fireworks were strictly prohibited, a few opportunistic people works to supply a lucrative amount on the black market. Our mother would never let us buy any but we always found a way to get our hand at least a few.

As we rounded house and came upon the backyard, our interested in the sound turned to hesitancy and then to anxiety when we realized its source.

My neighbor, David, and his neighbor, Daniel, were older than my younger brother and I, though the same age as my older brother. David was always getting into trouble. My brother and I disliked him. Our dogs actually sensed the animosity in ways I still don’t understand and would frequently fight each other. Daniel, though, was different. He seemed to tolerate, and occasionally be nice, to us when we´d see him alone in the neighborhood. But he could turn vicious when around David. As we make eye contact with them that day, I wished my older brother was there.

The two boys stood at the edge of their property that divided our two wooden houses. In between was a backyard of about 200 feet, where juniper trees and sage brush and high weeds reigned right up until our lawn and a great big tree that shaded our house. We watched as Daniel carefully would light a fire cracker, hand it to David, who would throw it into the air as high as he could. On the first two occasions, the firecracker exploded in mid-air, albeit over on our side of the chain link fence. My brother and I watched as the older boys hooted and hollered as the explosion would take place.

The third firecracker had a longer fuse.

As that firecracker desended past its peak height and gravity began accelerating it downwards, we all waited for the explosion. But it wasn’t until it landed in a very large, very dry sticker bush that it decided to explode. Flames leapt up almost immediately. And like someone had made a gasoline trail, the fire moved horizontally along the ground towards an equally dry juniper tree.

The fear we had was complete and justified. The worst had happened. My brother and I turned to each other with white eyes and panicked.

Sensibly though we ran to the porch, burst through the screen door and up the stairs shouting Mom as loudly and rapidly as our feet moved. Mom was asleep, taking a nap as is normal in the hottest time of the day, a siesta. She awoke immediately and sprung into action. As we ran down the stairs, she yelled over her shoulder, “ Neil call the fire department!”. Those words slammed into me just as the screen door slammed. The fire department, I thought, THE fire department? Up until this point, I knew that they existed of course, but never ever imagined I would be the one to call them.

I paused, but before I could panick more, I had 911 already on the phone with someone speaking. Somehow I gave them the address and said the key word, fire, and the dispatcher got the gist. I hung up and ran outside to join my brother and mother.

Outside the backyard had turned to a scene from Hell. Fire engulfed the juniper trees near the fence line emitting a black heat wave that I could feel on my skin and face. The noise was tremendous, with the trees seemingly calling out for help. This is when I saw my Mom. She had a firm grip on a gardening hose in hand, soot on her face, and was blasting the nearest tree to the house with water. I tried to yell to her, but the oxygen seemed to be sucked away from me, resulting in only my gaping mouth. She turned, saw me, and yelled, “Neil get the fire extinguisher!”

I ran inside, scared, but happy to have a mission and not having to look at the giant flames. I eventually found the extinguisher in a closet, after I fought my dog entrance. She was horrified by the scene outside and thought it would be best to hide in the closet. I returned outside to give my Mom the extinguisher after I had failed to set it off. I didn’t know there was a safety pin. She told me to see where the fire department  was, so with my little brother, we ran down to the street and flagged down the last truck.

When we returned, after I ran in front of the truck to show them the way, though they probably knew wehere to go and I was only delaying their arrival, my Mom was still battling the blaze. Though I didn’t know it then, she’d managed to keep the flame from igniting the much larger tree near the house that would have most certainly spread the flames to our moister deprived shingles. I watched as the men used an enormous hose to extinguish the flames, and the fire was over.

Looking back, I never understood what David and Daniel were trying to accomplish. Perhaps the were bored in the summer heat or found a chance to avoid their parents to explode black market merchandise. What I had learned was to not play with fireworks, which I’m sure many people, animals, and insects were grateful.

 

On the hottest days of summer, or Swimming through Childhood

On the hottest days of summer, my brothers and I would walk to the local swim pool. We lived, and my parents still do, in northern New Mexico just a few miles from the Colorado border. The winters can be cold there with plenty of snow, though they felt colder and snowier then, which surprises many outside the Southwest. What does live up to its reputation, however, is and continues to be the blistering hot summers. Later I would try to describe the heat as ‘dry’ to semi-interested Dutch acquaintances, though the adjective only means something to people that have experienced it, and thus, have no need for explanation.

My parents house sits squarely on a hill some five miles from the pool. Once or twice a week, my brothers and I would tire of our toys and water guns and tree houses and fantasies and walk to the pool. My oldest brother typically led the way since my younger brother and I, unable to withstand the distant ice cream truck blasting its addicting jingle, would almost always get lost. Our distraction significantly prolonged the walk. At our departure, faithfully accompanying us was my dog Gypsy, who would walk us to the perimeter of our property and reluctantly turn back when we told her to go home. A mix of border collie, dingo, and mutt, she was a true friend and protector of ours that I’m sure will be the subject of another story.

The street we lived on was aptly and unimaginatively named Foothills as it was positioned at the foothills of the distant San Juan Mountains. Even on a hot day, such as this one, we could easily make out snow white peaks above the juniper trees and mesas in the foreground. Being the foothills, the walk to the pool meant scaling and descending a few hills and valleys; an everyday fact that never fully factored into our plans.

The walk  to the pool seemed like a quest, even though we all knew the way. We past through the primary school playground, ignoring its appetizing yet sizzling metal slides that had tricked us before and continued  towards the adjacent neighborhoods. We could hear grumpy and lonely dogs bound within concrete and center-block. I felt sympathy for the dogs, since they seemed caged and heat crazy, and not at all free like mine. Though, I knew if I tried to befriend one, it would probably choose to protect its home over potential friendship, and try to rip off my face.

Not too long ago I had met one such dog on my walk home from a friend’s house with my younger brother. We were cutting across a neighbors property, avoiding sticker bushes and juniper trees when we came face to face with a possessed German Shepard. We made the unmakeable mistake of running from the enraged beast, who seemed so big relative to us, and it bit at our legs as we ran.  It was one of many times that summer I thought I would surely die. Today, the hot day, we passed the faceless dogs and their calls for attention with silent reverence and fear.

On our journey we spoke often of simple things as those were simple times. We asked ourselves if we would get fireworks that year (fireworks are always banned); what time Mom would be home; who could run the fastest, through the furthest, or more importantly who was the slowest and incapable; who would be at the pool; how hot was it; and other immediate concerns. This was a welcome distraction since the black asphalt and concrete sidewalks seemed to intensify the heat.

We would finally arrive at the golf course, where my parents were members. Elderly men and women, retirees though we didn’t know what that was at the time, hit golf balls amazing distances. We could never be sure one wasn’t coming for us. That is why we typically ran across the fairways, sensing the danger from above, only pausing if there was a snack cart nearby.  More than once we were scolded for these choices but it seemed a reasonable risk to take at the time, especially so since we weren’t completely certain how to get to the pool any other way.

At last we reached the swim pool and wasted no time diving in. The quest was over, the heat defeated.  The water was cool and clear that refreshed us. Tanned high school lifeguards attentively watched and occasionally yelled when we got to rowdy. The hours slipped by, each in our own way delaying the long walk home.

As long as I can remember, I have been swimming.