The One Who Shapes the Flame

I remember that as a teenager and young adult, one of the things that puzzled me was how very intelligent people could be so wrong about something. If I had to give an answer to my younger self, it would be: because they spent so much time defending the idea that they became vessels for it—like people who joyfully entered a current, only to realise too late that it now carries them blindly forward.

During the last two decades, I went through a lot of ideological narratives, some of them completely opposite, like fundamentalist Christianity vs atheism or communism vs neoliberalism. I've learned quite a few things from this, and one of the most important was that because we are primarily emotional beings, we can't truly understand an idea unless we believe in it and immerse ourselves in it emotionally. Paradoxically, the maturity of understanding that idea comes from losing the emotions that held you tied to it. If you don’t grow beyond the emotions an idea evokes, it will drag you wherever it leads—often without you noticing. This is a recurring theme you can see throughout history: people being motivated by the burning power of a new idea, only to be later consumed by it and burn the world around them.

Ideas are indeed like flames. If you are not trained in handling them, sooner or later you will become just a vessel for them. They can make you feel alive and offer vitality, but they can just as easily burn you from within and enslave you. You must understand the nature of their fire and learn to shape it. There is a narrow line between the vitality of a flame and its consuming force. You will know that it has started to burn you by analysing the nature of the feelings it creates. If it's fear and then anger, you know it is burning you from the inside. If all you can see on the other side are evil shadows, you know the smoke is too thick and you can no longer see clearly. You don't want to be a vessel for flames, but their master. You need to complete the metamorphosis cycle, take control of the flame, and get out of the cocoon. You must become the one who shapes the flame, not the one shaped by it.

Mastery over ideas doesn’t mean rejecting passion, but learning how to carry it without letting it consume you. The goal isn’t to extinguish the flame, but to turn it into a steady fire—one that warms, guides, and illuminates, rather than blinds. That’s how you recognise true wisdom: not in the loudness of conviction, but in the quiet strength of discernment.