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Thinking is a doing, but not all the doing that one does.

You know those people who are eagerly ready to help others park in a tight spot. They stand on the side and signal with a rolling hand that the driver should continue to reverse. And the driver does. That’s a large amount to trust to put in a stranger. You’re letting a stranger be your eyes. You offload a certain amount of decision-making that you’d otherwise have to go through.

I want to be that person. The person who steps in when a driver is in distress, trying to get through a tough spot. Except that I would never stop signalling. And I would promptly run after the thud.

Remember, it’s the thought that counts.

I might have lied or I might have forgotten. I don’t remember which it was.

Here you are. And yet here I am, missing you.

I’m fascinated by no parking signs, both for their typographical variety and their forbidding authoritarian nature.

Today I helped an old lady cross the street. And then I stole her groceries and gave them to the poor. And then I stole babies from the poor and gave them to the rich. That’s three feel good stories in one. And now everyone is happy, except the old lady and the poor. But whatever, you can’t please everyone. I don’t care, I just made the world a better place.

Your feelings aren’t as important to me as my feelings and I don’t even know what my feelings are.

I clicked on a link that said “plot” expecting to see a graph but instead got a storyline.

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.