I too have a hard time putting my heart into a flame. In the absence of sincerity I find myself falling back on art, consciously trying to craft a flame in one of the classic modes: Thundering Rage, Wounded Outrage, Tightly-but-visibly-controlled-seething Manifested As Cutting Remarks, Disdainful Derision...just not the same, is it? You might say that my post was a laugh at the expense of both of us.

I don't know that I'd fully agree that a good flame should be as dispassionate as you describe, causing "them to think and self-assess." or "inspire self-introspection or just a tiny bit of inner assesment". Flame doesn't have to be so serious, and anger has its place here. The walls are rubberized and we can easily hose off the flung excrement and bits of exploded cranium...in a subtle way Flame is about forgiveness. We allow for context in interpreting posts here and have the good grace to pretend it didn't happen.

I remember the last time I seriously took to Flame. It was the "aftermath of Katrina", and I was feeling pretty emotionally ripsawed, and I instinctively came here to vent. Technically Flame's for internal flames and in theory external flames like mine are OK on Current Events; but in that instance I wanted the freedom to have a little meltdown knowing that people would understand from the context that I just needed to vent. And possibly because, otherwise, I might have started flaming other Zoners if I hadn't blown off some steam.

Flame's a multipurpose facility. Fireplace, incinerator, decompression chamber, boxing ring and wrestling mat, whatever it takes.