We don’t sit around the same fires anymore.

We don’t watch the same TV shows, or trust the same voices, either.

We haven’t had a “song of the summer” in years.

No, we’ve retreated so deep into our bespoke, glowing silos of aggravation and self-adulation that the outside world feels entirely alien.

But once every four years, the globe stops spinning on its heavy axis.

It halts so that guys in neon cleats chase a synthetic orb.

And it’s worth looking up to watch.

The World Cup is this planet’s last great campfire — perhaps the singular monocultural event left to us, the human race, blurring borders just enough to remind us we share the same rock.

Because while the Olympics are incredible, no one cares about equestrian, racewalking or trampolining.

But soccer — football, fútbol, futebol, Fußball, nogomet, sakkā, kura, chukgu or soka — is globally loved. Now that the Marshall Islands are in tow, every single nation in the world has a national soccer team.

Perhaps we can all come together on this because we all know the absolute truth of the game:

None of this means a thing.

That’s the beauty of it.

Sports — even those played universally — are, at their soaring best, inherently frivolous.

Yes, it’s manufactured drama. But it’s unscripted, unpredictable and blessedly irrelevant.

Not so different from life itself.

Be it Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” goal or, four minutes later, his “Goal of the Century” in 1986 (England still hasn’t “brought it home”), Roberto Baggio’s penalty miss in 1994, Dennis Bergkamp’s still-baffling first touch against Argentina in 1998, Zinédine Zidane’s “Headbutt Heard Around The World” in 2006, or even Landon Donovan’s 91st-minute goal against Algeria in 2010, the grandest stage in the world provides to the most famous — and infamous — moments.

And that makes these games a wonderful, fleeting distraction from the unyielding things that actually matter. It hides the bills, the sickness and the quiet anxieties of the dark.

Heaven knows we need that distraction.

Of course, there are men in tailored suits with insatiable appetites that have made it their mission to conflate the real and the wonderfully ridiculous.

FIFA overlords are the undisputed champions of this grift. Shame on them for dressing up their corporate cash grab as profound global salvation; for selling the innocence of a child’s game for profit and then telling you with a straight face that they’re the good guys.

It’s enough to make you wonder if anything is sacred.

Because the World Cup should be a temporary antidote to all that ails us.

But I, for one, refuse to be deferred. I’m diving into this tournament like I’m Luis Suárez inside the box.

And if you’re not feeling the warmth from FIFA, let me instead invite you to join the fun.

It doesn’t matter how you come to worship the beautiful game this summer.

Maybe you’re a zealot. You fill out your bracket in pen and hunt down that last elusive Panini sticker.

You’re ready to scream yourself hoarse for the home soil, yes, but also your second team, your third team, and the players on your club team.

Or maybe you’re a complete novice wandering into the circus tent just to see what the shouting is about, picking allegiances on the fly based on a hazy memory of a trip abroad, or because of the fancy jersey.

Either way: Have at it. The doors are wide open. Despite the best attempts from the powers-that-be, there’s room in the pews for everyone.

That’s the true beauty of this tournament. The level playing field is level for fans and teams alike.

You don’t need a billion-dollar youth sports industrial complex to make this field. The biggest and strongest and richest don’t carry an inherent advantage in this tournament.

After all, this game only requires a ball, a functioning foot and a place to kick it.

Where else does the U.S. stack up evenly with Belgium, population 12 million?

Where else do we sweat out a match against Senegal, which has an economy that’s 800 times smaller than ours, or Uruguay, a nation with half the population of the Bay Area?

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that a great man is always willing to be little. I imagine the same goes for countries.

But let’s not get too humble. We’re hosting, after all.

As in the Bay. You probably noticed by now.

Yes, one of those famous circus tents is pitched right in our South Bay backyard.

It’s another recognition of the Bay Area’s undeniable gravity on the world stage.

Never forget, this place is a cultural cornerstone, extending far beyond the sterile, humming servers of the tech sector.

While it feels at times like FIFA is only in the Bay to mercilessly tap the local per-capita income — the suits didn’t even bless us with the best games — it could be worse. We were still picked.

And we will host a do-or-die Round of 32 match. If you know the rhythm of sports, you know few things rival the raw desperation of the knockout stage of the World Cup: 90 minutes of unblinking consequence; the weight of the world sitting squarely on 22 sets of shoulders.

I won’t ask you to fully ignore all the nonsense hitched to these games. We’re all too old and have seen too much to pretend the warts aren’t there.

But dissociate for a bit, if you can. Take the time to enjoy yourself a little bit.

Let the spectacle blanket the rough edges of your daily grind. Allow yourself to care about something that simply doesn’t matter.

You deserve it.

And this summer, there will be some fun.

I promise.

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