Feet to the fire

Years ago, I went winter camping at a hot spring you could only reach by snowshoes. It was about 33 degrees, and raining a little, so the whole forest was soaking wet. There were about half a dozen groups of people there, and towards the end of the day, everybody tried to build a campfire. I noticed I was the only one who succeeded in doing so. After a while, people came over and asked if they could share the fire and, of course, we said yes. Then they started to come over without even asking, I remember one guy in particular who walked over without saying one word, and started cooking a hot dog. As the night went on, and people moved around, I lost my seat right next to the fire, and with it, the ability to keep doing what was necessary to keep it going. But nobody else took over the job of fire maintenance, and I decided to just watch and see what would happen. After all, I am a giant Viking, I will be the last one to freeze to death! So I just sat there and drank my wine, and sure enough, these people I didn’t know eventually realized the fire was going out, but it was too late. They tried to get it going, but they failed. I just watched without making any suggestions to help them. Then they all wandered away. The next night, I chose not to build a fire, so none of them had one either.