I get the science behind them, I mean the actual reasons why they do what they do, but I’m just going to be honest here for a minute, I’m just gonna tell you the truth:
Magnets are magical.
They just are. You tell me anyone of any age that can be handed a set of super strong magnets and NOT play with them, not marvel at them, not be astounded by them, and I’ll show you a sociopath. Truth.
One side, they stick, one side they repel so ferociously that they literally push each other around the table with an invisible force straight out of Star Wars or something. Jedi metal, they should be called, and we should all be so much more in awe of them.
It’s not just magnets, either. It’s never been. We are surrounded by a million things that feel so commonplace and accepted now, that I firmly believe if we showed a caveperson them, they’d swear we were gods or witches or wizards. With awe they’d stare at us, flicking a lighter to life and producing flame from our fingertips, with fear they’d watch us stick two little circles of metal together with something stuck between them, with curiosity they’d gape as we produced miniature bolts of lightning from our hands after rubbing our feet on the ground, or our fingers through our hair.
At some point in our lives, we lose this sense of wonder for commonplace magic. I think there’s something important about finding it again. Again, I wrote an entire book on doing precisely that (Miracle in the Mundane, available all over I think) so you know that I truly do believe that the more we acknowledge the magic we’re surrounded by, the happier our lives will actually be.
Today, I just wanted to highlight some of the things that astound me, on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. Some have been explained, some have strong scientific reasons why they are the way they are, some do not and that makes them even more magical. Why not give them a bit of a highlight, and why not let you all add more in the comments section below?
The more we recognize the strange, beautiful, bizarre, and truly mystical in our lives, the more we’re noticing. The more we notice, the more we become curious, the more curious we are, the more we become compassionate, the more compassionate, the happier. Us, and them. All.
Here goes, a few very ordinary, but very magical, every day things:
Magnets - Yep, the first on the list as I have to play with them. I get the polarity thing, I get the arrangement of atoms and their electrons, but you know what? I’m pretty sure it’s still f’ing MAGIC that they do this. Once we harness this power even more efficiently, some of the cool Future stuff will start showing up. I’m looking at you mag-lev trains.
Compasses - Ok I get that these first two share a lot of the same science. But you tell someone who doesn’t know about them that you can stand anywhere in the whole world, be handed a simple little device with a little arrow, and that little arrow will then spin around and aim directly North, every time? Magic. Insane magic.
Déjà Vu - I have my own theories on this, in fact I just drew a very rudimentary sketch to Henry why I think this occurs, but it’s still, as far as I know, yet to be properly scientifically explained. Sure they have some guesses, but most of them are just about mismatches in memory, misplaced dreams, or your brain doing things twice so swiftly you don’t notice it. B.S. I say. I say it’s a parallel self in a parallel universe having already done this because of a minute change from a tiny decision, and we’re just going over the same thing that they already did. If you saw my drawing you probably wouldn’t be any closer to understanding, but you’d have seen my drawing. So there’s that.
Gravity - Tell a caveperson that the big rock and the tiny little pebble they are holding will hit the ground at the same time if you drop them from a great height, and they’d probably laugh or hit you with their club for being so stupid. They’d be wrong, but they wouldn’t be Wrong for being wrong. Gravity makes all the scientific sense in the world, and again, I understand the machinations behind it, but it’s still unbelievable that we are held to this earth that spins so frantically fast, and that all things that go up must come down. Further magicalizing itself, is the fact that gravity changes on different planets and moons, meaning you could literally float and fly other places just by jumping. Also insane is that when you’re in a shuttle and go just beyond the little layer of air way up there, you start to float around, and no one seems to think that’s insanely Harry Potter.
Fireflies/Lightning Bugs - Ok, I grew up calling them Lightning Bugs, and that name alone means they belong in the world of Lord of the Rings, or Willy Wonka, or something similar. You’re telling me, with a straight face, that there are insects on this earth that can wiggle their tiny asses and in doing so turn on a light in them? You’re telling me you can catch them in a jar and light up the whole place? That they flicker on and off at will? Yeah. That’s magic, and I don’t care what science says.
Aurora Borealis - I’ve been lucky enough to witness these 3 or 4 times, from the comfort of my own home no less, and every single time, I was astounded, awed, and left feeling like I was in some fantasy film that couldn’t possibly be real. Solar flares from a glowing white sun almost 92 million miles away is somehow creating this dancing purple, pink, blue, and green show all above us? That it pulses, undulates, swells, and shines? Nope, this is magic. Plain and simple.
Dreams - Ok, so we close our eyes, we lay down, we fall asleep (which on its own is magic too, we practically die for 8 hours a night, shutting down all but vital systems, and then some how just pop back up when Livin’ La Vida Loca starts playing on our iPhones at 7am? Really?) and once asleep an entire film begins playing where none of the characters, the plot, the settings, or the action sequences are real at all? Come on. Not to mention, none of the weird gravity rules exist, nor do our rigid ideas of “real” vs. “make-believe” so we’re able to see life as it truly is. Magic kids. Magic.
Smell Memory - So our brains are powerful enough that we can be sitting somewhere, and a single flitting aroma wafts past, crawls up our nose passageways, and then instantly its as though we’re transported through time and space to a completely other time where we first smelled that same smell? Gotcha. Totally makes scientific sense. No. It doesn’t. I’ve literally opened a bag of tea and been whisked back to Bakersfield, California as a 10-year-old-boy who is smelling Spearmint Skoal chewing tobacco wrapped entirely in already-chewed Bazooka Bubblegum for the first time as I sat beside Mike Busch, the lumbering, towering, monster of a man that played first base for the A-ball affiliate Dodgers. Explain that.
Static Electricity - I remember being a kid at sleepovers in my cheap black sleeping bag, the one with the silvery faux-metallic inside, and wasting hours I was supposed to be sleeping by rubbing my body around inside, and then using my fingertips in the dark to make little lightning bolts. I still rub balloons onto my head, and then watch as hair stands on end, and the balloon sticks. I still shuffle my feet around the house and then extend my long bony finger out to touch someones skin and give them a shock. Look me in the eye and tell me this isn’t magical? Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t gasp when removing clothes from the dryer on a winter’s day to see little threads standing at attention and dancing out of the way when you wave your hand by it? Yeah. Thought so. Magic, friends. Again.
I’m sensing you’re picking up the theme here. There are a million little bits of magic that we just forget to notice, forget to call out as such. The list could have grown and grown from my end alone, and I chose not to include such mysteries as quantum entanglement, more bioluminescence, or even why the placebo effect actually works, but I didn’t. You can though, and I really hope you will ring in in the comments. Click the button below to do so.
Either way, the way I look at it is simple. We can call them magic, or we can not. We’re given the choice, to see them that way, or to just let the fall away into the large and rapidly growing pile of things that become ordinary as we age.
Why choose the latter?
Life is hard, it’s tough, it’s long, it’s overwhelming so often we forget to stop and notice all the little bits of wonder that it throws at us daily. We forget that we get to choose, and it’s how we choose that dictates not only the life we lead, but the people we are as we do so.
I say choose magic, I say choose wonder, choose curiosity, choose to be awed by every tiny thing that comes your way. From the creatures we share this planet with, to the forces that science tries to explain, from the idea of soulmates to the truth that everyone smiles when bubbles are blown out of a little wand and left to float.
There’s so much magic, we just have to call it that.
Start now. Things will change. You’ll see.
If you enjoy this, please take two seconds to click the Heart to Like it at the bottom, and ReStack it or Share it. This really helps my work get seen by more people and helps this place grow.
Share this post