fire fire your pants on fire

wind-whipped flames rolled through brea this sunny afternoon. clouds of smoke dominated the sky as i drove down the 57. they were grayish white in color and blended extremely well with the sunny sky i thought they were clouds. it wasn't until i got to the cal poly field (for footie =) ) that i found out homes in brea and yorba linda were ablaze. i thought about the traffic due to freeways being closed. i thought about the envirornment due to the smoke. i thought of the poor now-homeless victims of the fire. what started as an innocent brush fire quickly spread to communities due to the eager strong winds coming in from the south. an innocent fire, causing heartaches, lives, property losses and environmental damages. an innocent fire appearing to be totally harmless can easily devastate thousands of lives.

it seems that such a fire exists too in the social web that is our relationship to the people who matters the most to us. like the brush fire, small at first, harmless at first but there, ready to set everything in its path aflame with the right push. this fire, this tendency to hurt is there. sometimes even without the strong winds, this fire can spread without reason and explanation. being burned hurts especially if the burning is done by someone you thought close to you. yet, like the fire in brea, the fires of the heart can be doused with a simple spray of water. forgivance is always within me that i can always look past what has been done. distrustfulness is a trait i find hard to obtain. yet, to be fire-proof, a sense of distance should be instilled. perhaps, i should learn a lesson in cynicism. maybe there is a "cynicism for dummies" book out there that i could pick up...