A single flame

Photo by Paul Bulai on Unsplash

It seems that we can compare our individual lives to a flame, as Shakespeare said: a brief candle.

The thing that makes us different and unique from a flame, is that the flame is guided, and its existence is determined by what we call the laws of physics in a strict sense. It can grow with fuel or be doused with water and must follow these rules without choice.

We on the other hand, have a sliver of agency.

So like a flame with a bit of agency, we can perhaps choose to burn solitary as a candle for as long as we can, or we can perhaps join with other small flames to make a blaze that can warm others and serve many functions.

We can evolve.

We can turn into a conflagration and destroy.

We can reshape the environment.

That being said, the laws of nature still apply, and those laws are objective, and in our own perception, perhaps uncaring.

For example, the single flame can burn, not only everything around it, but burn itself out.

The solitary flame can be snuffed out by a sudden rainstorm, given that there are serious limitations to this small intentionality we possess as flames.

It seems as if the real only worthwhile endeavor as a flame is to consider carefully the small degree of autonomy we have, knowing that it is minuscule in the face of the forces of nature and decide how we will burn.

We also know that as a flame, we will burn out.

We do not know when and we do not know how, but we know we will so that adds more of a sense of urgency to spending some time to consider how one will burn within the time we have.

Burn bright within the parameters of your own agency, for the brief candle is here, and then no more. Perhaps it is worth considering that the flame that defies this truth is the one that lends it light to another flame, and then another, and then another and so on.