With the fire in front of you, destroying everything, in the agony of the wind that rekindles every spark, under the heavy noise of planes and helicopters, you spontaneously think about the absurdity of human life more than on ordinary days.

Of course, beautiful days full of light and prosperity, at least here in the South, are most days... and it is only logical that on such days man is more inclined to think that all is well, that all will continue to be well, and so to indulge in fun and fight boredom by trading, investing, immersed in commercial disputes more or less legal, more or less speculative... weaving interests for himself, to get more money, losing his sense of the general good, of the common good, of his place, of his community... of what is just.

This is easy to understand; you don't have to have studied philosophy to see it, perhaps not even to accept it as part of human nature. But how much quality can it have?;

To look always and only at oneself, to accumulate a little money at the expense of one or the other, to benefit by destroying nature, the world, to ignore every call of the common good (except one's own)... is what everyone knows how to do.

But there is no human quality in being only cunning and thinking only of your own interest.

Man's speculative attitude is not far from his need for self-preservation; it can be seen as his basic instinct.

Even the one who devises complex strategies to defeat a competitor, to gain favour in a project, to curry political favour (with the meritorious intention of gaining more money or power)... is but a petty thief.
No petty thief is left to history. No one will remember him.
He will live only to be blamed by the community, and he will die like everyone else - without leaving a single faint line behind him, like the silent, trembling slime of a snail.
If anything is surprising, it is how low the man thinks, how little creativity he has, how little ambition, how mediocre he is. He doesn't see all that he could do and become if he would just try to be reasonable, to bring his world closer to the ideal, to concern himself with how to protect, care for, enjoy the wondrous world around him.

At least those who were lucky enough to be in such a wondrous world...

It would be enough to put things in order, based on priority:
«We have one euro. What should we do with this euro? What are the most important needs to invest?»

So here is something simple: to think lightly, with organisation, with practicality.
But also with the ambition to leave a meaningful trace. Something the community can accept with a gesture of consent. And perhaps with a smile. These were my thoughts as I watched an evil tongue of fire destroy a forest. I was thinking how simple, after all, it is to think, to anticipate, to organize, to be prepared for the worst.
To make use of thought (mind...) to make stable and protected what is fragile and exposed.

Fire is not evil - it's just doing its job. Like a wolf devouring a lamb.

Only man does not do his own job well...
When it does not protect a southern island from the fire that will inevitably come-
When he doesn't care about local transport, because he only thinks about the revenue from tourist flights;
When he's not thinking about how to collect all the rainwater to fight the drought-
When it pollutes, it pollutes, it is violent to the sea and to the land;
When he plans to rape her again and again, for money, to build, to speculate;
When he thinks it is profitable to build a marina, while the precious ship that connects him to the mainland has not even a safe place to moor;
When he does nothing for wildlife, and thinks that thousands of migratory or terrestrial wildlife being killed by a wind turbine or a fire is no big deal;
When faced with a fire he is quick to downplay it, so as not to frighten the «holy tourist»;
When he seems to think that progress and growth are the same thing, when even a child knows they are not.
When he doesn't think about how to make his world a better place tomorrow. Everyone's world.
Before it was destroyed.

Simone Perotti