I got a fire to make. Someone gave me that job when I was born. I don’t know who, but that job was mine alone. For life.

I got a fire to make, and a nice handful bunch of spark and fuel to make it. Should I make a brilliant burst of fireworks, or a small, easy campfire? 

I’ll be done real quick with the job if I just burn it all up in a brilliant burst of fireworks, but no one said anything about what I’m supposed to do after that. If I’m born to make a fire but I finish it too early and burn out, will I get cold later on in my years? Will I still be able to start a fire after that? What can I use then?

Or I could start a small, easy campfire. Just mostly bright embers glowing, and an occasional flame. I can cook with it, get warm, defend myself from predators, and watch it crackle all night for entertainment, every night, till I die. It’ll be a small fire, but a good, useful one. But I’ll have keep it going all my life. I will not be able to leave, nor try starting other fires.

I got a fire to make, so which fire should I start?

Nobody told me what to do. The one who gave me this job didn’t say. I suspect it’s up to me, since she seldom spoke. 

I think I’ll choose neither. I don’t want to burn up in an instant, nor slow burn it out in an eternity of boredom. If it’s my life’s job to make a fire, I will learn to tend a fire so that it can grow. I will use my fuel to make more fuel, my spark to seek out more sparks. I will build a forge to tend the fire, to focus its intensity to the point of being able to melt iron and gold. I will use the iron and gold to build better forges, better tools, to build an even stronger fire. So strong that, maybe I can become the sun, for a billion years? A fantasy. Wishful thinking. But wish for the stars and land far enough near them. Perhaps, perhaps.

Above all, I will be patient. I must be patient. I will have to tend it well. I will tend it tenderly. It’s tempting to go down the fireworks path, for a moment of brilliance and fun. It’s assuring to go down the campfire route, for a lifetime of security and stability. It’s way harder to build it, to grow it, make it ever more useful for yourself and to others. 

I got a fire to make.