Making Fire

Illustration from Boy Scout Handbook (1911)

Horace Viator in his additions to Time Warping for Beginners introduces what he called The Skills & Practices.  This is a list of skills and practices that a Time Warper would find useful.  Recently I have been going through the list and attempting to accomplish the various items.  Skill & Practice Number 20 has been one of my latest tasks. 

Skill & Practice #20 reads as follows,

Be able to start a fire with the most primitive tools, and it almost goes without saying, know how to put one out.

Making fire was a longer experience than I had expected and certainly more frustrating.  The tools I used were not "the most primitive," but they were more primitive than matches or a lighter.  Prior to my attempts I knew how to make fire since I had seen it demonstrated and read about it.  But those things did not fully prepare me for the act and practice of doing.  In that respect, much of life is like making fire; it is through the humble act of trying that we truly learn.