Phoenix Building

From ash heaps come new beginnings. Like the fabled Phoenix, the urge – the inner demand for renewal – forged new history. A city was rebuilt, like Chicago. Better than before. More stable and better planned. Future was envisioned. Purposeful use of land and space was provided. The people returned, new ones came, and industries formed. The brawny shoulders of Carl Sandburg’s Chicago came into being.

California wildfires cleared the land. Ugly and despairing. Spirits will come forth and rebuild communities, economies and future. It is the time, the place and the spirit of the people. From the ashes will come bright and brazen futures.

Companies, too, experience this cycle. Sears is going through it now; it was forecast; the greed of one person for many wrong reasons took the company down. For naught; he miscalculated; the land and buildings he thought would bring unending wealth became nearly worthless. He did not anticipate the Amazon’s of the world relegating him to a footnote of history. Lampert-ism will be that footnote.

He, Lampert, has created the ash heap of one of the largest retailers in history. From this will come another phoenix, small at first, but mighty later if cards are played well. Perhaps many phoenixes will pop up from this long-suffering debacle?

Building anything new is upon the foundations of the past. Whether it is virgin land to our eyes, there was something there before us. A culture, a people, a crop, a building, a something. Much later we have happened upon this spot of history to build what is new to us. Done right, it will thrive. Done poorly, it will sputter for a time and die. Like the times before this.

Remaking man’s tale on this planet is a constant becoming. Maybe it is ‘practice makes perfect’ in motion, continual and ever present? We can hope it is so. With it we can do much.

Fresh thinking and perspective make many good things come to life. Like a forest fire, a renewed forest is seeded for the next generation. It is the heat of the fire that breaks open the seed pods of giant trees. This is biology at work in timeless progression. It takes a fire to bring new growth.

Mankind gets some things right; some things wrong. His new beginnings often fritter away in the night. But a few of his strivings go on to become a bright light for a few generations. Then the inevitable happens and re-invention is needed.

We are at that point perhaps? Is this our time for the phoenix’ return? What fire will be required?

May it happen soon. And quickly.

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 22, 2018