Controlled Burns on Land and in Mind

A ‘controlled burn’ in the field of ecology is a management tool which can help to, for example, maintain a prairie by removing trees that have encroached in an area where a land manager does not want a forest. A wildfire, of course, is the exact opposite of a controlled burn. I believe that these different types of fire are metaphorically related to the way that we as individuals view the world and interact with one another.

Wildfires are not necessarily bad, just as burning, uncompromising passions in the minds of individuals are not always bad. In fact, both are sometimes needed to cause a desired outcome. Some ecosystems rely upon wildfire, such as the lodgepole pine forests in Yellowstone National Park, which depend upon fire to open pine cones to regenerate the forest. Many important societal movements, such as the on-going struggle for the establishment of civil rights, would be impossible without a leader who possesses a fiery, hyper-focused mentality, which I think could be compared to a wildfire in the context of this essay, as I will explain. Sometimes, though, the goal is to keep control. Because, for example, if the fire that you have started to maintain a prairie gets out of control, an entire town could be burned down. Similarly,  an idea that you have whole-heartedly embraced without first carefully considering alternative ideas could aide in the destruction of our society.

I was part of a team who helped to administer a controlled burn at Prophetstown State Park, to maintain prairie habitat, a few years ago. In so doing, we first made a detailed burn plan, and had to wait for the precise wind conditions so that we did not lose control of our fire. Here is a picture of me with a torch, helping to maintain the prairie in a responsible way.

Photo taken by fellow student, named Jill

Our minds are not much different than this fire was, and can also be influenced greatly by ‘the wind.’ Any interest or inclination begins as something like a tiny flame on a candle stick. Then one will feed the flame through a given source (say, the opinions of Rush Limbaugh, Carl Sagan, Bill Maher, Pope Francis, Che Guevara, Bernie Sanders, etc.) to the point that he/she can, if not careful, become possessed by a raging inferno which they no longer have any semblance of control over.

In simpler terms, our thoughts are directly related to our experiences. If, for example, someone looks outside to watch the falling snow and thinks, ‘human-caused global warming is a hoax,’ they may be inclined to do a google search with those same words. Before that person knows it, they have followed fifteen different WordPress sites which agree that the damned scientists have made up the idea of human-caused climate change to help the Chinese economy, whose government secretly pays all of the world’s climate scientists large sums of money in order to control them. And ‘evidence’ for this notion could be provided daily, via, for example, the followed sites. This example may seem absurd, but I believe that similarly groundless beliefs are held by many people who don’t understand that certain interest groups know how to take advantage of them, and do, or at least try to, every day. The frightening thing is that many of us ‘like’ or ‘follow’ only ideas which are in line with the way that we want to see things. It is far too easy to cocoon ourselves, be it by what stations we listen to on the radio, what WordPress sites we follow (mine are rather eco-protection-oriented, I admit), what church we attend if we attend at all, etc., so that we may ultimately lose, at least to some degree, the ability to make thoughtful decisions due to ignoring alternative points of view. I know from my own biases that exposing oneself to contrary ideas keeps the decision-making process alive, and helps one to avoid becoming rather mindlessly dedicated to a cause which may not be the best one.

The presidential election in the United States seems to be a great current example of the danger of raging, out of control, emotional fires. It would be interesting to know what would have happened if all American voters had been required to study an objective report about all of the candidates and what they represent before voting in the primary elections. So, speaking of feeling the Bern by setting aflame Bushes, ask yourself if we would have nominated either of the candidates that we did if such research had been done? Maybe, maybe not. Ask yourself honestly, and look at the actual evidence before deciding, which candidate, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, is more likely to be so incompetent that they endanger life on Earth? Which candidate is more likely to greatly harm our country and the world due to their actions? This is an open-ended question, and the decision is yours to make. I hope that you wouldn’t vote for that person, despite their incompetence and harmfulness, just because they represent the political party that you generally associate with. Might unquestioning allegiance to that party have been burned into your mind by, say, biased hosts of political commentary shows who spread misinformation and discourage critical-thinking skills in order to advance their own careers?

Though I don’t like politics, I felt as if I should present my thoughts because, unfortunately, this election could have dangerous environmental repercussions, which is an issue that I care deeply about. So, while voting in this election and making daily decisions in general, I think that it is important for us all to consider very carefully the conditions which control our ‘mental flames,’ and tend to our fires carefully, or we may well become a flaming disaster that we can’t understand, which ultimately burns others as well as ourselves.