How A Fire Helped Me Remember

It seems a long time since my first post on going a year without television, at least until I realize it's still February. Then it doesn't seem very long at all.

I was thinking a lot about our decision not to watch tv during our short trip to Rochester last week to see Maile's brother and his family. We took a few peeks at the Olympics (you can't travel 300 miles and then be antisocial!), and the kids watched a few movies. I was still reeling from the realization that television has some positive elements.

Then a quick attempt at starting a fire brought things into perspective.

My brother-in-law Ryan has a fireplace, and I was trying to start a fire without kindling (tiny twigs and branches), using only cardboard and then huge logs. It wasn't going very well - the cardboard would burn really hot for about a minute, heat up the sides of the logs, then die out.

Just as I was struggling to get this fire going, Ryan came home.

"You got any small sticks?" I asked.

"No," he said, "but there's a bag of firestarters out there."

I went out into the freezing cold garage and grabbed a small, yellow plastic bag with something solid inside of it. It was a firestarter. I read the directions, handling it like it might explode into flame at any moment. Then I placed it between two logs and lit it, bag and all.

Suddenly there was a beautiful fire roaring in the fireplace, but I was left feeling strangely useless.

You see, when I was a kid I was in this church thing called Royal Rangers, where we learned to tie knots, chant off certain credes about character, and, among other things, start fires. We learned to use kindling, tinder, and then the real firewood. No paper, no cheating.

By the time I was 12 I could start a fire with my eyeglasses, a shoelace and the hollow wooden thingy that held my red neck tie in place.

Anyway, Ryan's fire starter had taken all the fun out of it. I sat down with my book and tried to read, but something was nagging at my brain. Then I realized.

Television is a firestarter.

Remember how when you were a kid and your parents would say "stop nagging me - go outside and play" so you'd traipse out the door with a couple of G.I. Joe's or dolls or something and end up under a tree somewhere in your backyard or at a neighbor's house and you'd play and play until, when it was finally time to go back inside, you really didn't want to go?

Remember how you used to rely on your imagination to have fun, and you'd create entire worlds and universes and everything hinged on some single solitary decision that you would make?

This was the same thing as building a fire one small stick at a time, seeing the nearly invisible flame turn into some monster of a bonfire.

But now - CLICK - the tv is on. There is no creation, only consumption.

I miss those small sticks.

That's what we're trying to get back to with this tv-time-out. The creation. The imagination. Reading. Writing. Playing games. Peace. Quiet.