Decay & Forest Fires

This post originally appeared in the author’s blog @ fiveshotsofcoffee.com on 8th June 2021.

Nope, they are not related.

Today I happened to hear about one, and I thought about the other one.

A daily motivational show I listen to, talked about forest fires today. Forest fires, they said, are no doubt a great hazard, but it is Mother Nature’s way of starting afresh, a clean slate. Well, I thought it is BS. And i had to look it up. How can forest fires be beneficial? All a fire does is kill a lot of trees, a displace a lot of lives – human & animal, and ruin a lot of homes and livelihoods.

Here is what i found out. Forest fires have been occurring for a long, long time. It is just that they have been happening at an alarming pace recently, likely due to climate change & human activity (Something has to be done about that, for sure!!). However, all is not bad. Even before human involvement, limited forest fires used to occur naturally every few years. There are a few good things which come out of a forest fire.

• The debris in the forest floor gets cleared.
• The heavy underbrush gets removed.
• Opens up the forest to sunlight.
• Clears the weakened and infected trees.
• Kills pests and insects.

All this leads to

• Nourishment of soil.
• Reduced competition for nutrient, promoting fewer healthier trees.
• Prevents a future large wildfire.
• Increases water flow.
• Keeping the forest healthy.

Astonishingly, certain species of trees and plants are fire dependent. They need wildfires now and then to regenerate. Without fires, the legacy of these trees and plants would be lost.

Okay. Whats with the forestry lesson, you ask?

Nothing, but after I heard about forest fires today morning, I immediately thought about decay. Call it a side effect of being in a group that keeps talking about theta-decay.

I know what is decay, but I had to look up it’s definition. The word has multiple, striking definitions. Do check it out !! The ones i found the most striking, are these:

to decline in health, strength, or vigor;
to fall into ruin;
wasting or wearing away;
to rot;

Our time in this world is limited. Every second you live, a second you have less to live. That is a decay we do not have any control over. But, I think we do have control over another form of decay, Mental Decay.

Our Mind is with us, every single day of our lives. And over several days, months, and years, our mind gets clogged with loads and loads of useless information. All the gossip from office, the rants of the neighbour next door, polarised opinions from the news media, larger than lives that exist in social media, grudges we hold, emotions we never let go, anger we hold for decades, and much more. So much that could have been let go a long time ago, but still firmly held as a part of us in our mind.

An old forest filled with lots of unhealthy trees, wild underbrush, debris & pests, doesn’t grow. It begins to decay.

So does our mind !!

We all need a few forest fires within us, don’t we!!