The Magic of the Every Day
Magic in its most basic form is built around the wonder of the world. It can come from the awe we feel when we take in a breath-taking view, or when we first learn something new and we unlock the door not to completing our understanding but to realize just how vast the things available for us to learn truly are.
I’m so grateful for the advancements in science and all of the amazing discoveries in healthcare, world history, humanitarian organizing, and economic development. These remarkable achievements have brought unheard of prosperity to hundreds of millions and pulled millions more from the brink of devastating poverty into somewhat more stable living circumstances.
Certainly we still have a long way to go until every human being world-wide can choose their own path to happiness and success, but I think it’s definitely worth noting what an exciting era we live in despite the many challenges we still face. Personally, I’m so grateful for medical advancements that quite literally saved my life a number of times. I’ve often thought about the fact that I wouldn’t have survived my health challenges had I been morn just a decade or two earlier.
All of that being said, I worry that modern society has focused so much on the human achievements that they have lost the magic in the world. There’s a sad phenomenon that hits a lot of us where once we understands how something works, it no longer amazes us. I’ll give an example.
Have you ever thought of what a magical thing the Internet really is? We use it so fluidly now in our phones and our tablets and even or fridges, thermostats, and alarm clocks that I know I usually only notice it when my WiFi goes down, which happens so rarely because the technology is so well established.
But think of it for a few moments: we can send and receive messages from practically anywhere worldwide. Those messages come in what are called packets which are bundles of messages based on individual Internet Protocol (IP) addresses so that specific messages are developed to just the right computers. The packets of data get sorted and displayed by our chosen browser and we can interact with the content having the data translated from 1’s and 0’s into common language, graphics, video and more.
We can understand to some degree how this works. I certainly would never dream of building anything like an interconnected web of millions of IP addresses or even a router for that matter. But I can grasp the concepts. But isn’t it just incredible to think that we have this tool in our hands? Magical things don’t always come in the shape of wands and cloaks and secret incantations. Wonderful magic is in our world all around us.
The kind of magic I’m talking about is based on the wonder of the world. The awe we feel when we take in a breath-taking view, or when we first learn something new and we unlock the door not to completing our understanding but to realize just how vast the things available for us to learn truly are.