A Point of View BY Paul V. Montesino

The Uninvited Metaphors.
A Point of View © 1996
By Paul V. Montesino, PhD, MBA, CSP.

Repeatedly life provides us with unsolicited examples of its fragility. They are moments that not only surprise us but confuse and befuddle us. Whether they are weather incidents or our aggressive interactions between groups, the results are the same: nothing is as it was before, and we not only end with destruction but also with a hard lesson that will teach us how defenseless we really are in the face of such calamities.

The recent destructive forest fires in California are an excellent metaphor we can use to evaluate our existence even if we are not there. Trees and bushes that had been growing unimpeded for centuries disappeared overnight. Homes of different architectural designs that housed both the rich and the poor turned to ashes, and their occupants had to leave hurriedly to avoid death. They found nothing of any value when they tried to return.

But the metaphor covers a broad spectrum beyond California. Millions of human beings in certain countries, including ours, before and now, have left behind homes, families, culture, and possessions to emigrate with nothing more than a dream and a bag over their shoulders, an illusion that things would be better somehow. A high price was paid for the voluntary destruction of what was behind it and the lack of positive recognition for their actions. The concept of “tabula rasa” applies here.

There was no fire fed by the winds behind us when we had to move, but the symbolism was the same. In the history of civilizations, moving from where we are is constant human behavior. It could have been the hordes moving west from Africa to the European lands, the Europeans sailings to America, and the Indigenous peoples who crossed the Arctic East and South to our continent. Whoever they were, they acted like victims of a fire that consumed their past and forced them to start a new way of life.

This leads us again to the example of this California metaphor. The residents of the West Coast have to recognize their tragedy and restart their engines. They, and us in sympathy, will look at the lesson taught by the destruction of so many lives and move on in the same way as the millions who did it previously. They  survived, their cultures eventually did as well, and all waited patiently for whatever new metaphor life wanted to provide. 

And that is my Point of View today. So long.