Smoke is blinding and chokes the lungs, but it has zero generative power. To solve a problem or harness energy, one must bypass the distracting 'smoke' (gossip, emotional outbursts, superficial chaos) and find the white-hot 'fire' (the actual motivation or failure). It advises against fighting symptoms. Ìwòrì Méjì represents the piercing eye that clarifies vision by looking through the illusion.
Thick smoke is the loud child of fire, but it is not the actual fire itself. Clarify your vision; do not let the noise of the symptom blind you to the cause. The truth is often silent and hot, while the lie is loud and choking.
Relates to the blacksmith's forge: ignore the smoke, focus on the iron core.