 |
| photo by Josh Trujillo/SeattlePI.com |
After all, human beings are just physical systems, subject to the same natural laws as everything else, so it’s hard to see how it’s any more apt to argue that we make free choices than, say, that evergreen trees “choose” to lose their needles as they dry.
Thus, for instance, it was inevitable that after the burn ban was lifted earlier this week, a vast throng of cyclists would haul discarded Christmas trees from downtown to the beach to ignite them into a huge inferno surely visible from outer space.
And just as inevitably, as soon as someone, somewhere made the 9-1-1 call about flames rising to the heavens inside a circle of several hundred revelers, that the fire and police departments would arrive to carry out their appointed duty to extinguish the flames, even though, as one officer admitted, doing so was part of the 90% of his job he doesn’t want to do but has to.
Given, therefore, that everything unfolded entirely as it had to, one need not mourn what wasn’t, but can give over completely to gratitude for what was, including, among other amazements, that:
• No one was arrested
• Not a single tree fell catastrophically from a bike or trailer on the Ballard Bridge
• Ultimately, all the Christmas carbon was released, albeit quicker and with a more abrupt ending than anticipated
• A second, and even more surreal, conflagration was ridden to and reveled about, this one complete with more fire dancers, louder music, and friendlier members of law enforcement
A night on which you’re rousted by the cops not once, but twice, and still no one goes to jail has to count as an unqualified success even if there’s no authentic agency at play there.
It’s simply the Universe unspooling as it must; how fortunate we all are to be flickering tongues of flame in this grand cosmic blaze.
No comments:
Post a Comment