A Bridge Once Burned

  " One should never burn bridges they one day might need to cross over".  If every action one performs can be an interpreted as a symbol of what they want or how they want to be perceived, what is the act of burning a bridge to be interpreted as? Symbolically and its use in the English language it draws on the burning of ones kingdoms route to another kingdom. Cutting off all forms of trade and diplomacy between them.   In actual practice it is an act of vanity or maybe better described as one of pride, one individual decides that for whatever reason, or for whatever slight they will purposefully put that relationship to the flame.  A strange practice in terms of active trade and barter reality the relationship was one at one point that worked well enough so that the two kingdoms or two parties set forth to build the bridge linking their kingdoms in the first place.  For one to decide to do so (build the bridge) they must have decided their relationship was mutually beneficial enough for both parties to link their fates together. Then to later burn said relationship to the ground and sullying not just your trade agreements, but the memories of the individual and how they helped you in the past seems strange.
    From a pure logic standpoint it seems counterproductive for one to burn a perfectly good bridge that they might someday find themselves needing to cross back over to avoid the cliffs and gullies of life.   Logic however isn't often a strong point of the ever emotional mankind and we let out our personal feelings and ideals dictate how we interact in the world and those around us.   We must at times set fire to those bridges to prove the point that we won't be treated such and such way. Which is a bit silly for the one we are teaching that lesson too will be the only one that learns our standpoint and they are cut out of our lives.  No one else benefits from such actions and often times not even ourselves.  Upon thinking about this and coming to this realization I have come to the policy of abandoning bridges instead of setting them to the flame.  Sure they may decay and not be as sound as they were when they were first constructed, but any explorer can tell you when traversing rugged terrain you would rather come across an old overgrown bridge to pass over than the smoldering remains of a bridge long past burned. Coming across this bridge on must do the work to reconstruct it or you to have to traverse the full terrain to get to your destinations and goals in life.