Month: August 2012

Our friend Google defines magic as the following:

1. The power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces

2. Mysterious tricks, such as making things disappear and appear again, performed as entertainment

3. A quality that makes something seem removed from everyday life, esp. in a way that gives delight

4. Something that has such a quality

Arthur Clarke gave us this:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Magic has a number of meanings for me. I like Google’s definition #3, the others seem boring. I like Clarke’s observation as well.

esp. in a way that gives delight

How cool is that? To construct something in such a way that it gives delight. Something that gives you a sense of awe and wonder, an experience that makes you look left and right and say, “Hey, did you see what I just saw? Did you experience this moment with me?” And I’m not talking about magic tricks here, I’m just talking about the things that happen. The things we experience: reading a good book, writing a song, a good conversation… whatever.

To Clarke’s point, I feel that magic is also the gap between ignorance and knowledge. The things that I do not know are magic. And there are so many things that I do not know. But the beauty of this gap is this: even when this gap is filled there is still magic. Wonder does not end with the acquisition of knowledge. There is still wonder in knowing and understanding, and that wonder is beautiful. In this sense, things like science and engineering are magic. The pull of a string on a guitar to create a note is magic. There is so much magic.

Magic isn’t just what is out there, it is not the unreachable. Magic is our reaction to what is out there. Magic is our interaction with wonder.

I want to dance like there’s no tomorrow, but I’d like to do it tomorrow.

“I knew you’d ask that question,” is not the answer to my question.

I want to stereotype everyone but there are so many people.

I’m not arguing with you “just for the sake of argument.” In fact, I find that accusation rather insulting. I’m arguing with you so that I can crush your dreams.

Sometimes when you learn a new word, it starts to seem like you hear the word more often. It starts to stand out, you start to pick it out of sentences that otherwise would go to waste.

It’s not that the word is being said more often than before you had learnt it. It’s that now you are aware of it.

The first word where I realized this phenomenon was skeptical.

It also makes me wonder whether we just ignore words and sentences we do not understand. That perhaps we do not even hear them.