We are learning to make fire - Margaret Atwood
I believe in evolotion. But not in the apes become accountants kind of way. I mean the process of something starting off as so simple and then developing over the ages into something quite complex.
Imagine two little boys, dressed in sabre fur rubbing sticks together in the bush, when they should have been protecting their family from marauding man eating dinosaurs. They rub and rub their sticks together as they discuss how scary it was that the night before they heard raptors screeching just above them in their caves.
Then... all of a sudden, smoke whispers up, eyes widen and they stop - starring at each other. They try again, rubbing,rubbing, rubbing, smoke, sparks and then fire. Yellow flames lick and dance. They are entranced, not realising that the flames are about to taste their fingers.
With yelps and whoops they run back to their caves, crashing through the scrub. They grab their mother's hands and lead them back to the spot where the fire was growing. The mothers hop and jitter, not sure if this new thing is a good thing, but they can feel the warmth of it on their skin and look at each other in awe. What is this magic? The fathers arrive too and smile at one another, they poke at the fire and in turn get burnt which makes them laugh out in surprise. Someone throws water on the fire and sees that it fizzes. Another dangles part of a bone over the flames and the smell of roasting meat fills the air.
Zoom forward 2000 years and here I sit, with a hot cup of coffee. The water boiled on a stove that starts with a Piezoelectric starter, a tiny flame that ignites gas. I also think of heaters and rockets and spit roasts and toast and hot air balloons and racing cars and hot showers and microwave ovens. All things that have been inspired by fire. By a simple discovery that changed the world forever.
Imagine being the one to discover something like fire? Imagine it? It gives me goosebumps....
