Pearls: Once the fuse is lit, that’s it

Rummaging through the garage the other day, I stumbled upon a few small fireworks that we had purchased that had been forgotten. Not wanting to keep them past their usefulness (or really to have them in the garage at all), the kids and I lit a punk and finished them off.

It was during the process that I lit the fuse on some little gadget – it amounted to a little rocket on wheels – and realized as the fuse was disappearing that I really hadn’t aimed it down the sidewalk very well. It tipped, blew a few sparks, made a couple of whistles, and burnt itself out. The kids were a little disappointed that it hadn’t taken a longer, straighter ride before falling flat.

‘Once the fuse is lit, that’s it, kids. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen,’ I told them.

It’s true of fireworks, and it’s true of all different aspects of our lives as well. Once you say it, then it is said. What you do is done. And all that you and I destroy is gone.

So our best recourse is simply to be careful which fuses we choose to light. Either that, or keep a bucket of water handy at all times to put the fire out. But once you douse that firework, it’s dougtful that fuse will ever ignite it again.

My hope for our country, and indeed for our world, would be that at some point we would stop lighting every fuse. We’re so quick to set our fellow citizens ablaze, particularly with our social media posts and political views, that we forget that damage we’re doing to society.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t express our opinions – but doesn’t anybody care about decency and basic social etiquette anymore? A few decades back, you would at least enjoy a burger and a round of gin rummy with the neighbor before descending into a political discussion. Both the cookout and the political talk are perfectly acceptable – but why did we get rid of the better part of those old summer evenings?

Why did we choose to keep the unpleasantness of politically charged rhetoric, but we stopped having neighborhood cookouts?

Everything can’t be sunshine and hot dog, and lemonade – the world can be a hard place, and life often robs us of too many moments of joy or leisure – but when did we decide to become so obsessed with how everyone else vote in the last election?

Now don’t tell me: The stakes are higher now. This country is experiencing historic division. If we don’t stand our ground, we will surrender everything we hold dear to the other side. I understand. Truly. But I have a question to ask you:

If social media disappeared tomorrow, would politics seem so important to you?

I lived in a world without social media, and so did most of you. In the late 1990s, I saw Democrats and Republicans standing off with one another on the grounds of policy. By the early 2020s, all I see are the social media images of hardline conservatism versus extreme progressivism.

My solution is self-serving: it would involve throwing out social media and going back to reading. Books, magazines, newspapers, anything – just reading information from people who made it their life’s work to gather it accurately and to present it fairly.

How do those folks across the globe come up with the design of all those fancy fireworks? What makes some of them fly so high and explode with such precise, flaming fury? I might never really understand the science behind it all.

But what I do know is that the little green fuse, once lit, transports fire directly to its explosive destination. If watching folks blow up until the fire falls is your idea of fun, let’s hope we’re just talking about fireworks you bought from a July 4 vendor.

If your idea of fun is causing other folks to blow up like a screaming firework, then I suppose this has all been lost on you. The fact remains however, that a lit fuse can only end in one reaction – so let’s be careful what fuses we choose to light, huh?

Matt Pearl owns and operates The Tri-County Ledger.

Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.