Hier nun eine Abhandlung über das Feuerzeug - Erzeugnis einer totlangweiligen botanischen Vorlesung in der Uni *gg* ich hatte mal wieder ne Englischphase. Und fragt mich bitte nicht, wie ich auf dieses Thema kam - ich weiß es selber nicht mehr.

The pocketlighter

Fire, an ancient myth of the former caveman times. One of the most destructive and devastating elements and one of the most necessary. In the past it meant protection from wild beasts, brutes or other tribes. Fire was frying meat over a campfire, warmth in cold winters and light in the darkness. Fire was superiority and dominance over other species or nature itself and an insurance for surviving. It was a sign, given by the gods, send down from heaven by an infernal beam of light. Later it was Prometheus who stole the fire from the chariot of Helios, the deity of the sun. For this, chained at the Kaukasus, he was punished for the rest of his neverending life, because now people were able to make fire by themselves, rubbing a woody stick at another one. So they lost their innocence.

And nowadays?

Matches appear, but they only work in dry circumstances. With the invention of mass production, one produkt was letting a dream of mankind come true. With a simple pocketlighter, people were bestowed with godlike might and now were able to create fire whenever they want to. Lighters function everywhere and are very simple build: a cylindrical plasictube, filled with liquid gas. On the top of it sits an easy structured mechanism, which allows to control the escaping of this gas. Integrated there is a rough steelwheel, which is scratching over a firestone, producing sparks and incinerating the gas. Very easy and as simple as it can be. It always looks the same, same shape, same mechanism, only the color differs. There may be new models with piezo-electric ignition but the chief task remains.

With a pocketlighter in the ancient stoneage, everyone could were a god. And today? Without fire, our civilisation would not be at the same level as it is now. Nothing would function without it, so for industrial purposes fire is used steadily. But for what do we need fire in daily life, in domestic surroundings? Only to pollute and harm nature and ourselves. The pocketlighter as a mass production-article it is mostly not refillable. It is made of plastic and so it ends in the garbage can after using it. And the rubbish mountain grows ... plastic does not rot. Stoves and ovens are electric, matches are more romantic for fireplaces and candles, moreover they are also water-resistant and they can rot, because they are made of wood. We do not need any torches, because everywhere is street lighting or we use flashlights.

The pocketlighter is a fossil in our society, but it represents it in the same way. Lighters are mostly throw-away-articles and we live in a throw-away-society: everything lasts for only a short period of time. The pocketlighter is something, which has outlived itself and this example of portable fire fore-shadows a dark future for human mankind. Like a guiding light it leads us towards our doom. There may come a time, where everything is exchangeable and people throw-away-entities, only used as spare-depots. Then the human has outlived himself too and will disappear soon, sharing the same fate like the pocketlighter. The only hope is to protect us from ourselves in order to survive. With mass production and without effective recycling or reuseable materials we will pollute and kill Earth and so ourself. The pocketlighter is only one example for the narrow-minded way of thinking in our „modern“ society, but it shows us the near future like a scary shadow at a wall, shifting and moving like it is thrown by a fire.