On the Chasing the Arsonist Metaphor

I preface all this by saying I am in no way an expert in the philosophies I will be discussing. In fact, I consider myself worse than average in several of the concepts I’ll be bringing up. That’s why I find them so interesting. There will be many flaws in my logic here, so please discard those parts and only take in the aspects of what I say, if there are any, that provide value to your life. I hope there are some🤞

So what is the chasing the arsonist metaphor? Thich Nhat Hanh, a master of mine that I shall never meet, came up with it in a very eloquent way in his book, Anger:

“If your house is on fire, the most urgent thing to do is to go back and try to put out the fire, not to run after the person you believe to be the arsonist. If you run after the person you suspect has burned your house, your house will burn down while you are chasing him or her. That is not wise. You must go back and put out the fire. So when you are angry, if you continue to interact with or argue with the other person, if you try to punish her, you are acting exactly like someone who runs after the arsonist while everything goes up in flames”

These are amazing words to live by, in my opinion. I found myself the other day riffing on this concept in my mind and will now share my thoughts.

Just as often as people chase the arsonist, they also will avoid the fire in their home. They will move to other rooms in the house that aren’t currently on fire in order to avoid the discomfort. They’ll even attempt to avoid the flames when they are surrounded, which is something we can all probably relate to and is well reflected in this funny meme:

So what does someone do when they find themselves living this scenario? I don’t know, remember I’m no expert. I would think that as soon as you find yourself inevitably back in this position you find the courage to lean into the discomfort and do what you can to change the things in your control that may help the situation. As Winston Churchill put it: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Communicate and have critical conversations, take care of yourself and others instead of being an escapist, there’s probably a lot I’m missing.

People will also take the advice of putting out the flame too literally and/or impatiently. They will stamp out the fire with their bare feet just to have it out of their headspace as soon as possible. But if you stamp out a fire rashly with bare feet, you will still be reminded of that fire with every step you take. That fire is now a part of you, and you can potentially put that fire on others because you identify with it. You project it.

This brings me to another point in all this, don’t be the arsonist. And if you are an arsonist, you should be held accountable. The point should not be missed that abuse is not ok, whether intentional or not. What matters is how it ends up making the other person feel. These points were brought to my attention by someone way wiser than me on many of these topics who doesn’t feel the need to profess it in a blog post, my Wife.

I believe the better point to be made is that someone has to break the cycle. Maybe it will be the arsonist that breaks the cycle, but oftentimes in order to start a fire, you are already in a pretty messed up place whether you realize it or not. And this is not excusing the behavior. I think it’s more likely that the offended party can break the cycle if they can find a way to not get engulfed in the flames. Then they don’t end up being an arsonist as well.

My final point involves acceptance. We have to accept that fire is a thing that happens. Sometimes it means everything’s not going to be ok. Sometimes it’s not as big of a deal as we initially perceive. There’s a fire in the house because it’s the fireplace. Humans have harnessed the destructive power of flame for good. So you could look at it like yeah there’s a fire in my house but it’s in the form of these candles that shed light, and this furnace that provides warmth. You could even think of it as the ancient Greeks did and say that I have harnessed the power of the flame to get this blog post in front of your eyeballs today with technology. Fire is finicky though, and we all know the story of playing with fire. You end up like this guy: