September 2, 2009

Wildfires and Consequences

Consequences are pesky things. They follow us around all of the time, haunt us when we just wish they would go away. Impulse decisions, well-thought-out decisions, decisions with unexpected effects, all result in consequences... Sometimes good, sometimes bad.

Now, I'm not telling you anything you haven't known since kindergarten when the teacher yelled at you for stealing your neighbor's cookies. I'm just thinking out loud here. But I'd like to point out that cause and effect has more truth to it than you might think.

Take a look at the recent Los Angeles wildfire tragedy, for example. Apparently officials are saying it was started by a human. Does that person even know he or she started the fire? Was it sparked by a cigarette tossed casually aside after dinner? An overheated lawn mower? Even not-so-dead ashes from the family barbeque?

There's no telling, for now. It could even have been arson, though I can't think why someone would do something like that. At any rate, now there are two firefighters dead in the line of duty, thousands of people evacuated, and miles and miles of land burned to a crisp...

This incident reminds me of a few things. The fall of King Arthur, for one- when his army faced Mordred's, a soldier drew his sword to kill a snake, and the war began. Thousands of people were killed, practically every main character of the story died- all because of that snake. (Arthurian legend is actually quite good at demonstrating just how capricious fate, or error, or whatever you'd like to call it, can be.) Take quite a few divorces, for another- how many times has something completely unintentional been the reason for a permanent separation? And how about those cookies you took by mistake in kindergarten? What a consequence that lecture was...

I'm not really one to advocate painstaking caution in decision-making. But I do think we should all think about those fateful moments- the wrong lunchbox picked up, offense taken where none was meant, ashes tipped out onto dry grass...

Because sometimes small sparks cause wildfires...

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