What? Fair question. But before we dive into the flames, let’s touch on something that applies here and pretty much everywhere else that matters: Perspective is power. Remember that; we’ll return to it.

Between hurried projects, a rare opportunity presented itself in that I was too spent to begin anything new, but it was early enough in the evening I could spend more time on a web project before closing up – a little time for learning and applying creative flare. So began a hunt for a distinctive web font. The end goal, of course: make someone think, “OK, that’s kinda nice.”

There’s a hurdle: you have to do it the hard way. There’s a certain psychology. Nice things aren’t as nice if anyone can have them easily. So, 20 seconds to find an objectively beautiful font on Google Fonts? Depends on the project but simply for being too available, it can absolutely be bad. Only a few people care you say? True the dime a dozen $200 a month client doesn’t care. But the $200K client probably does. And the people handing out awards.

On a high end project, that customer wants what doesn’t come easy to just anyone. Or other people at all, ideally. Exclusivity and rarity drive value. Easy is worthless. Scarcity is priceless. I train sales people to master this but as it pertains to design—

BOOM!

Did someone just drop a refrigerator? That’s odd. I nearly returned to the task at hand before deciding that explanation was so weak, maybe a glance around— OH SHIT! My fucking bedroom has flames and smoke, and someone outside the window screams, “Ray, get out now!”

My brain shifts from relaxed perusal of curated glyphs to high-acceleration, save-the-village wartime mode in a literal flash. Step one: grab the kitchen trash can, dump it, fill it a third with water, run back to the room. I splash it on the curtains. Behind them, the window is a few standing fragments, the rest in pieces all over the bed—I realize this after leaping on it to spring again, ripping the curtains from the high bar, otherwise out of reach.

I fall back, crashing to the floor with wet drapes, rolling to absorb the shock and put out any flame on them. It felt surreal that they weren’t engulfed.

A similar amazement would follow later, looking at the glass pieces all over the bed and floor suggesting that had I gone to bed when I was 50/50 on whether I should, I would’ve been sliced up and sandwich ready right now.

But that doesn’t even dawn on me yet. The fire is still raging. I have no idea what’s going on besides a general idea of the source, and a guest staying here so far sleeping through this in the guest bed 30 ft away.

“B, get the fuck up! The house is on fire!” I clap my hands to startle him further. No time to linger. I figure a 50% chance of stopping this, maybe.

He groggily says, “What?” and goes back to sleep. Facepalm.

“YOU. NEED. TO. GET. UP. RIGHT. FUCKING. NOW. OR. YOU. ARE. GOING. TO. DIE!”

He gets up, unsure if I’m messing with him, then stands stunned, looking at the smoke emitting from my bedroom. As reality sets in, he asks what’s going on, what can be done.

I answer as I’m yanking large plastic duffle bags—most of my belongings and clothes—and tossing them into the living area near the sliding glass door, the only exit. They’re heavy, recently placed there. “Grab a container, fill it with water, help put this out! There’s a trash can there, there! If you can do it fast, and see the scissors, cut the top off 3-gallon water jugs!”

“Which one?”

“Any one! The first thing you see that works, use it!”

He grabs one. I see him from the room as I’m furiously trying to empty drawers of valuable contents, should we fail. Should be easy if most stuff is bagged, but it’s going to take too long.

I shout to the living room, “The sink will never be fast enough! Get water from the pool!”

Staring at the mess of busted-open things between my room and the exit, I have to give up. No way to save everything and put the fire out in time. I leave it to burn, with an odd stack of t-shirts and boxers on the porch table—an amusing homage to what for a moment seemed like a sensible attempt. As if, of everything of value, the only thing definitely safe was a couple of boxers and some t-shirts. Yeah, well, moving on.

I’ve been in a lot of smoke by this point, don’t yet realize the impact, but will soon. For now, I’m supercharged with adrenaline, mind a mile a minute, running to grab any receptacle that holds water and, on the way to the fire, dragging it into the pool to fill it. My first grab is pathetically small, but there’s no time. I have to see what’s even happening.

I see the fire by the gas tanks and water heater outside. After tossing water with no measurable impact, I see the property manager on the hill, looking down at the flames in shock. “I thought I was back in Iraq.” Okay, now that’s funny, but no time for laughing. Who knows if he’s blinded or deaf or cut from shrapnel.

I run back with my friend, who warns this may not be salvageable. He’s right. Looking at the belongings, bags split open, contents all over the floor, 10% at most of what’s in the room still, then the office setup, electronics, needed data—an unthinkable disaster to lose, expensive to replace. It is hopeless to try and grab belongings or make a Sophie’s Choice. It’s still possible the fire can be stopped if my bedroom contents don’t ignite.

“I have been through too much to lose everything again. I know what it feels like, and you know what I’m talking about. I would rather fucking die than repeat that.” People say things like that flippantly; this had a bit more conviction, given the circumstances.

Back to the room. I can’t save things by pulling them out, absolutely certain. The plan remains: put that fire out. All that can be done inside is make sure flames don’t ignite the bedroom interior. Nothing to light until the bed, so I splash more water and fall down, yanking it further away. Getting up in a hurry, I grab another container, again too small, but the mess has grown—belongings and trash now blending in the middle, blood pressure clouding my vision. If I have to make more trips, fine, I’ll just run faster.

A bit in shock, he jokes, “You’re like an action hero, this is crazy.” Okay, that’s the second funny thing. I had to laugh, imagining what this—and I—look like to a third-party observer. Probably pretty fucking extreme.

I glance around for sirens, neighbor commotion, fire truck lights. Nothing. Nobody but us on this poorly lit evening, illuminated by flame and moon. I don’t fully understand how the bomberos work in Mexico but assume they’d eventually be here. Not a peep from neighbors.

After splashing another bucket onto one of the gas tanks, I can see more. The owner tells his tale: he was changing a gas tank, it ignited, blew, cut him up, burned him pretty good. Staring at the flame while touching your ribs to see if you still have them would put a lot of people in a semi-shocked state. He’s clear now. We continue talking as I refill the bucket in the pool, splashing it, getting closer each time. I think he warned me; the hill certainly implies a desire to remain distant.

And naturally. Changing a tank means one is empty, one is full. The one on fire is the former. So at least one of the maybe five around is full. The whole scene is fire. At any moment, an explosion exponentially greater, and anyone near it shredded like Sargento cheddar.

I go back, fill the bucket. By now, I have burns and cuts from getting closer, and I’ve fallen on spilled water by the pool multiple times, so I’m physically pretty beaten up. As I jog back, trying not to slip again, I stand staring at the fire. My friend just threw his water. “I wouldn’t get that close, man.”

And that’s when whatever I might’ve done matters less. It was clear: most people save themselves, and they’re crazy not to. Nobody’s going to be liquified by an erect torpedo to save my Social Distortion t-shirts or Zoom meeting cam. But there’s a lot more in between, and a history I may or may not ever share here—a backstory that, if not justifies, at least gives context to my extreme attitudes.

It’s not my boxers or t-shirts I’m willing to die for, but make no mistake, I will. It’s that I had to acquire virtually every article of clothing, most everything else, the hardest conceivable way. Not too long before, there was maybe $25-30k in Louis Vuitton and Hugo suits. Thrown away. Along with? Everything I owned. Everything. I have a couple of photos of my parents on my Google and cell, some of me recent and at a happier time around 2011 when syncing online photos was something a girlfriend did. Besides that, nearly nothing. The story gets a lot darker from there. We won’t talk about the last of my father’s ashes being thrown in the trash, 20 or 30k of designer suits, code projects over the years, records from a decade-plus in business. Where was I? Disposed of too. Discarded in a separate location, a different day, with at first a t-shirt, jeans, and a dying cell phone with a dead charger.

The point is, some bad people did something bad. Before I thrived, I had to survive—resuscitation at one point, honestly trying not to survive, but I did. And in so doing proved some people wrong and acheived again what everyone doubted was possible or certainly not probable. So when I’m with one of the few people who know even some of what it, and they tell me I can easily die a gruesome death continuing like this, after I just said I’m willing to do what it takes to keep what’s mine this time… I will proudly and happily die in defense of a fucking toothpick if it’s mine. Because, it’s mine. And I’ll never again be intimidated out of fighting back. Not by anyone or anything. Not cops or lawyers or business partners or girlfriends, wives, and their mothers. Not cartel, not bandits, not flaming gas canisters under pressure.

So I remind my friend, staring at him, holding the water, “I told you. I am willing to do what it takes. I hang on to what’s mine, or I die.” I’ll say it a million times if needed. Each time I say it, I’ll be closer to the fire. I pour the water over with a pretty direct hit. If the object was wider, had just a bit more water, that could’ve done it, suffocated it. But it’s just barely too shallow and narrow.

The solution is clear: having balls. As a man, this is a great moment; you win no matter what. If I die, it’s a spectacular death following some stone-cold shit said staring intensely. If I win, I saved the day, a whole house, and anyone nearby with basically testicular fortitude. It’s just badass so I’m getting a kick out of the whole thing honestly. And I enjoy the look I’m getting in response because that buys credibility, it buys confidence. It means the next time I say I’m serious about something, it won’t be doubted or questioned. And that is useful.

Last time here. One more dunk, one more fire walk. The canisters miraculously, inexplicably not exploded like the first yet. I don’t know how or why but assume it’s any second. My bedroom is filled with fumes and smoke, but no fire inside yet. I stare at the source of flames, no longer concerned with minor burns and cuts, and finally put it down. In time to prevent the subsequent explosions I feared inevitable.

With that, I jog, then slow to a walk, getting back to the house. Adrenaline depleted, I stand in my room, staring, start moving things around. Then I fall a bit to my knees, getting weaker, realizing I’m breathing so much smoke I can’t breathe. Dizzy, feel like puking, mouth dry like I’ve been in the desert. I lay down, soaking wet and shirtless, on the couch and begin coughing uncontrollably.

My friend arrives back, gets what’s happening. Maybe I pointed at the smoke. He’s trying to get me out of it, but it’s really too late for that. I just need to be covered and not move after some water, which he gives me. I’m throwing up on the floor while trying to drink it. The property owner comes in to help, having been on the other side, didn’t see all the smoke in the room.

I’m sure he looked at the weird stack of three boxers, a few shirts, deodorant stick, double-A battery, and whatever else was standing alone on the outside porch table, neatly folded, as if they were the prize of the estate. That might be the funniest part to me: someone looking at the hurricane inside and this curious pile like, “What on Earth was he thinking here?” I agree, whatever I was thinking wasn’t a good plan. But I pivoted so it’s actually evidence of that, but really funny to imagine someone quizzing over it. My friend got the joke, though.

Much context missing on the reputation damage and business side of this, but the point remains: an exciting, surreal, dangerous moment, and I’m only more grateful each time I recall it. Some broken and destroyed things and I did not enjoy the excitement; my life has been too exciting to want adrenaline rushes. I preferred to have a window intact and a dry, not-smoky mattress covered in glass to sleep on. But wow, that’s a lot of glass. If I hadn’t decided to be up an hour or two early, especially laying on top of the covers sideways by the window as I had lately been doing, that would’ve been bad. Instead, a few broken things, a good excuse for new drapes, and hopefully, a good story to fill the old rumor circle with.

It’s not often you’re gifted a chance like this to prove your masculinity definitively, much less how much further than that you’re willing to go and what you’re really made of. In my case most people I know have worked for me, and trusted I was a worthy leader. If not for me, with me in some capacity. With men this is a complicated dynamic, and can be dangerous. Unpleasant things can take place should that sentiment change or confidence decline. Am example to illustrate would be to just stream a seafaring drama like Mutiny on the Bounty. And knowing leaders don’t slide sideways, sometimes they fall and get eaten. Which is why opportunities to restore or renew confidence are not merely valuable, they are necessary to get the pack to back off.

Which brings us back finally to perspective and why I stress that perspective is power. A disability can come with an ability. An experience can have a valuable lesson you needed, or in my case, people around me needed. Extracting value out of situations where others see nothing is a valuable skill. You may not want to have to prove yourself to anyone, but what we want isn’t always relevant to the reality of how things are. Glass is half empty but before frowning, it’s soda, not water, and with your diabetes you know a full glass would kill you. Make sense?

Finding a legitimate reason to flip a negative into a positive is a skill worth honing that’s similar but distinct from mechanisms to avoid guilt or grief. You know, responses like denial, delusion, projection; brain-pretzel-like mental gymnastics. The line is blurry and you have to make the final call. I’m not aiming to assist in avoiding accountability as that’s actually a waste of a whole separate superpower. I’d rather just to empower by finding hope under the rubble, a light in the darkness, and suggesting you have some creative control if you need it. A constructive outlook that can help on the masculine path to controlling your destiny, and defining what you are by facing truth and still bending the world around you to your will.

There are times in our lives challenges we face, mistakes we make, unfortunate tragedies that can befall us, that we have little power to fend off. While this is hardly my highest stakes battle, the ones that were are inarguably a direct consequence of the times people for whatever reason lost faith. Not surprising though when you think about it, Trust is the most valuable thing in the world but there’s it can build that can’t also be laid waste to in seconds by the equal and opposing force Doubt. So where an explosion sending glass shooting across their bedroom is not a welcome even most days, my mind is on the seizing the opportunity it presented and the only significant impact it has in the big picture.