EDITORIAL - There is no regulating celebration

It is the time of the year again when talk gravitates toward the control and regulation of the sale and use of pyrotechnics, and all in the name of safety. What does not get into the picture is the impossibility of reining in human nature.

It is in human nature to celebrate. And as far as Christmas season is concerned, humans have acquired an explosive taste by which to do so. Until authorities seeking to slap controls and regulations on pyrotechnics understand what human nature means, they are doomed to fail.

In celebration of the Christmas season, especially where pyrotechnics are concerned, there is a great participatory nature lurking in humans that cannot be satisfied nor mollified by mere beholding.

Exploding fireworks may be beautiful and exhilarating to behold. But it is far from being a mere spectator sport. There is no way you can designate a particular place and time for these things. We correct ourselves. You can. But it is not half the fun.

You know where the fun is? Just wait around for Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve and you will realize that exploding fireworks after actually everywhere, far too sweeping and widespread for any law to gather under any beneficient embrace.

Not even the thought of physical injury or even death can temper the urge as it rises deep within the nature of humans to get excitement as much from ecstatic pleasure as it is from serious danger.

We are all for safety from harm. But we should also be prudent enough not to levy anything that can only be observed more in the breach. Undermining the law undermines the social fabric in ways more dangerous than physical harm from fireworks.

Impractical laws, or practical laws that cannot be practically enforced only serves to project the weakness of such laws. In the long run, they only serve to bring to the fore our weaknesses rather than our strengths.

Perhaps better ways can be found to ensure that physical harm from fireworks do not reach catastrophic levels while at the same time allowing people to give vent to their inherent nature to celebrate that which deserves to be celebrated.