A Spark to Your Motivational Flame!

Have you ever tried to start a campfire the old fashioned way, via the bow method or a similar caveman approach? It ain't easy, my friends. In fact, there have been many occasions on which I have been out in the woods attempting to start a fire with the aid of an aim-n-flame and stinkin combustibles (kerosine, gasoline, et al) where the conditions simply did not permit. Perhaps there was a wind blowing or the wood was too damn wet - whatever the case, if I genuinely needed to start a fire for survival purposes on those occasions, I likely would have perished, or at least needed a good spooning. Now imagine our ancestors, long ago, actually discovering fire and subsequently, all it's useful applications. How incredible that must have been...how fire changed their lives in so many ways.

After watching the above video, it is easy to see the difficulties involved and the mere patience that is requisite, in order to start a fire. First, you need the correct tools, the wood must be dry, you must be able to apply proper technque to create sufficient friction, and then, once you have a tiny cinder, you need a decent "bird's nest" to nestle it in - fuel for the fire. Check out 1:30ish into the video, when the dude has the nest in his hands and he's blowing carefully on it to bring the flame to life - AMAZING! Finally, once you get the fire going, you had better feed that sucker, or else it's going out!

I say that the process of starting a fire and keeping it alive is a metaphor for our work in DDIP, and really -for our very lives. The latter is beyond the scope of this blog, but suffice it to say the object of the game is to keep the home fires burning, YES, YES?  Regarding DDIP, consider that when a new recruit enters this process, they are building that fire...they're trying, often in vain at first, to produce the raw materials and get the friction going. Through hard work and the support of our group, a spark can often be generated, sufficient to catch fire. But the flames must be stoked, my friends...and each successive training day is what keeps it burning. We can never quit!

With the weather forecast for Friday being potentially a couple inches of nastiness, some of you may already be tempted to revisit the snow days fo several months back and hunker down under the covers, but let me tell you, my friend, those covers smother what could be your inferno! THUNDER, LIGHTNING, DRIZZLING RAIN, NOTHING BUT PT INSIDE MY BRAIN! Decide now, that come Friday DDIP, you are gonna be a stinkin BONFIRE! May your flames lick the sky and evaporate that precipitation back from whence it came.