I used to be one of these hyper-rational folk, believing most complicated things could be dissected down like a frog’s anatomy.
But recently I had an amazing conversation with an artist, who suggested that sometimes, reality is more truthfully represented via art than a realistic rendering like a photograph.
From Sara Pendergast:
"I have a painting of a little girl (shown above). She was at this party just running around, being the cute little kid in the group. And her ponytail was catching the light in a way that was fascinating to me... She was also so vulnerable and uncertain...
I took... photos of her... enough that I could create a drawing.
But my painting of her looks, in my mind, much better and more representative than any of the photographs that I took.
I didn't want to keep any of the photographs. But that drawing. Yeah, that resonates with me.”
There can be magic in science too. We can smash atoms at almost lightspeed, detect gravitational waves, photograph black holes. This are all incredible and we don’t talk enough about how impressive all that is.
I don’t think knowledge is the problem practicality is. We are to obsessed with getting something practical out of knowledge that we don’t consider how magical our world and our technology is. Compared to the sixties we have super computers in our pockets.
Let the world enchant us and be curious even if it doesn’t have any use cases
You are a very accomplished writer with many magical things to say, which is why I took advantage of your "half-off forever" offer to become a paid subscriber. (That, and the fact that I am a cheap bastard!)
Absolutely beautiful, thank you for sharing this. Totally agree that our need for hard facts removes some of the magic from life. The funny thing to me is that we often have the facts wrong anyways ◡̈
Also I don't think science and magic are inherently at odds. Science gives us a lot of our best magic (e.g., we get to know that we're made from the dust of stars). But they are often at odds in our modern culture for contingent historical reasons. Any complete scientific picture of reality would incorporate and celebrate our lived experience of magic.
For anyone interested in the history that got us to this divide, and one proposal for how to fix it: Phili Goff has a book on how consciousness was explicitly removed from science at the beginning, to focus on making progress on more easily quantifiable patterns, and leave subjective experience and the qualitative nature of things out of it.
Then our wires got crossed, and people mistook the failure of science to understand subjective experience as a reason to believe that subjective experience "isn't real," or is less real or less important.
Existence is suffused with magic, and even the most narrow-minded scientific materialism can't explain it away. Why is there something rather than nothing? Why does anything in the physical world behave the way it does? Why is the universe ordered and consistent enough that we can do science on it in the first place, generalizing laws from an experiment in one place and time that we can trust to apply far away and long ago? At a certain point, if you ask "why" enough times, the answer is "that's just how it is." This is the fundamental miracle of existence, and the appropriate response is probably just awe, gratitude, and fascination.
Completely. Even if your only answer is “we are on a speck of dust swirling around the universe at the precise dimensions to produce life” well how incredible is that??????
I have this theory that neuro-divergent people are the default, not the neuro-typical. There are too many of us to not be “normal.” We’re just beaten back by the loud BigNeuroTypicals who are just scared and nervous when they can’t make sense of something. Art and beauty scares them … and magic.
My grandson .. 4, going on 5, is wicked intelligent… he hasn’t been tested but I suspect his IQ is off the charts. He also has some very high EQ, spins stories out of nothing, everything is possible and he approaches the world as if magic is real, just we haven’t yet figured out how it works. Watching him, being a character (accomplice) in his world … I have no words yet about how that explodes my heart.
I’m under no illusion about how that is gonna be hard for him when he starts kindergarten, how he frustrates a large swath of his family already (except my daughter for whom he is an accomplice in her capers. (What can I say, she grew up knowing me her whole life 🤷♂️) I hope he continues to find me a safe haven where magic is real and anything is possible.
Sort of like how you think of your brother, I often think of my aspie daughter as “The Oracle in the Cave” or the Hermit Tarot card. She’s suited for being the hooded hermit who lives alone in a cave in the woods and scares kids, but also who is sought for advice and dispenses cold, logical wisdom or potions to the villagers seeking help in exchange for benevolent food deliveries.
Great essay Elle. I feel this is also the appeal of religion and in believing there’s something more than us and our facts. In some ways these fantasylands help us make sense of the world
I had a hard childhood and my ability to imagine a better life for myself despite the skepticism of others helped me live the life of my dreams. When I turned 40 I realised that I had achieved all my dreams and was in a crisis for some years. I needed to have a new dream to keep on going. It took a while but now something new is forming. We need to be able to imagine our future to keep on going as humans.
Elle, I absolutely loved it. That was so beautiful.
Fantasy help us survive and one day it will help us thrive.
When I was a kid I started reading superhero stories and I believed all these wonderous people exist, I believed that I was one of them and that gave me hope and helped me make through a very difficult childhood.
And in my earlier adult years it happened the same. Every time I felt like is taking me down I held on to these stories and here I am today becoming like them in my own way.
Wow, I love that so much. It is so true! I very much believe that we can imagine our way into anything! Changing my soundtrack can instantly change my mood, just because I've come up with a new way to feel!
A wonderfully thoughtful essay, Elle. When man made science his religion, he ruled out magic and miracles as superstition. But if we listen to our instincts and our hearts, we know that there is more to life than “the facts.” There is still magic in the world. Fiction (storytelling) is a perfect example. How can someone create stories (even whole worlds) just by imagining them. It’s magic. Fiction transports us to someplace beyond reality. Music is another magic that has survived the ages. Long live magic!
I used to be one of these hyper-rational folk, believing most complicated things could be dissected down like a frog’s anatomy.
But recently I had an amazing conversation with an artist, who suggested that sometimes, reality is more truthfully represented via art than a realistic rendering like a photograph.
From Sara Pendergast:
"I have a painting of a little girl (shown above). She was at this party just running around, being the cute little kid in the group. And her ponytail was catching the light in a way that was fascinating to me... She was also so vulnerable and uncertain...
I took... photos of her... enough that I could create a drawing.
But my painting of her looks, in my mind, much better and more representative than any of the photographs that I took.
I didn't want to keep any of the photographs. But that drawing. Yeah, that resonates with me.”
I so agree with this. Art is the perfect veil through which to see the world!
I loved this.
Ah, thank you Elle. I will listen to it after dinner.
There can be magic in science too. We can smash atoms at almost lightspeed, detect gravitational waves, photograph black holes. This are all incredible and we don’t talk enough about how impressive all that is.
I don’t think knowledge is the problem practicality is. We are to obsessed with getting something practical out of knowledge that we don’t consider how magical our world and our technology is. Compared to the sixties we have super computers in our pockets.
Let the world enchant us and be curious even if it doesn’t have any use cases
It really is incredible! And I love your closing quote….
You are a very accomplished writer with many magical things to say, which is why I took advantage of your "half-off forever" offer to become a paid subscriber. (That, and the fact that I am a cheap bastard!)
I cant believe I missed that.
Well thank you so much James. I really appreciate that 😊
Absolutely beautiful, thank you for sharing this. Totally agree that our need for hard facts removes some of the magic from life. The funny thing to me is that we often have the facts wrong anyways ◡̈
Also I don't think science and magic are inherently at odds. Science gives us a lot of our best magic (e.g., we get to know that we're made from the dust of stars). But they are often at odds in our modern culture for contingent historical reasons. Any complete scientific picture of reality would incorporate and celebrate our lived experience of magic.
For anyone interested in the history that got us to this divide, and one proposal for how to fix it: Phili Goff has a book on how consciousness was explicitly removed from science at the beginning, to focus on making progress on more easily quantifiable patterns, and leave subjective experience and the qualitative nature of things out of it.
Then our wires got crossed, and people mistook the failure of science to understand subjective experience as a reason to believe that subjective experience "isn't real," or is less real or less important.
Existence is suffused with magic, and even the most narrow-minded scientific materialism can't explain it away. Why is there something rather than nothing? Why does anything in the physical world behave the way it does? Why is the universe ordered and consistent enough that we can do science on it in the first place, generalizing laws from an experiment in one place and time that we can trust to apply far away and long ago? At a certain point, if you ask "why" enough times, the answer is "that's just how it is." This is the fundamental miracle of existence, and the appropriate response is probably just awe, gratitude, and fascination.
Completely. Even if your only answer is “we are on a speck of dust swirling around the universe at the precise dimensions to produce life” well how incredible is that??????
I have this theory that neuro-divergent people are the default, not the neuro-typical. There are too many of us to not be “normal.” We’re just beaten back by the loud BigNeuroTypicals who are just scared and nervous when they can’t make sense of something. Art and beauty scares them … and magic.
My grandson .. 4, going on 5, is wicked intelligent… he hasn’t been tested but I suspect his IQ is off the charts. He also has some very high EQ, spins stories out of nothing, everything is possible and he approaches the world as if magic is real, just we haven’t yet figured out how it works. Watching him, being a character (accomplice) in his world … I have no words yet about how that explodes my heart.
I’m under no illusion about how that is gonna be hard for him when he starts kindergarten, how he frustrates a large swath of his family already (except my daughter for whom he is an accomplice in her capers. (What can I say, she grew up knowing me her whole life 🤷♂️) I hope he continues to find me a safe haven where magic is real and anything is possible.
Just a quick peek into how I navigate the world. Short story long, I continue to wave my hand across an automatic door as if I am rolling it back with magic… sometimes it makes me some unexpected friends and traveling companions. https://medium.com/monkey-with-a-loaded-typewriter/passing-on-the-magic-1d391cc3ed8e
Loved this. Living in fantasy is my favorite.
Sort of like how you think of your brother, I often think of my aspie daughter as “The Oracle in the Cave” or the Hermit Tarot card. She’s suited for being the hooded hermit who lives alone in a cave in the woods and scares kids, but also who is sought for advice and dispenses cold, logical wisdom or potions to the villagers seeking help in exchange for benevolent food deliveries.
Oh I love that so much!
So enjoyed this, Elle, A wonderful appreciation of the stories we rely upon to enrich our lives
Thanks David!
Great essay Elle. I feel this is also the appeal of religion and in believing there’s something more than us and our facts. In some ways these fantasylands help us make sense of the world
Oh very much so. Thanks Perzen!
I had a hard childhood and my ability to imagine a better life for myself despite the skepticism of others helped me live the life of my dreams. When I turned 40 I realised that I had achieved all my dreams and was in a crisis for some years. I needed to have a new dream to keep on going. It took a while but now something new is forming. We need to be able to imagine our future to keep on going as humans.
YES! Exactly! That's beautiful Claudia!
Elle, I absolutely loved it. That was so beautiful.
Fantasy help us survive and one day it will help us thrive.
When I was a kid I started reading superhero stories and I believed all these wonderous people exist, I believed that I was one of them and that gave me hope and helped me make through a very difficult childhood.
And in my earlier adult years it happened the same. Every time I felt like is taking me down I held on to these stories and here I am today becoming like them in my own way.
Wow, I love that so much. It is so true! I very much believe that we can imagine our way into anything! Changing my soundtrack can instantly change my mood, just because I've come up with a new way to feel!
That was beautiful, Elle. Arthurian legends hae always been part of my favourite first stories.
It's newly one of my favorites too. Thanks Zoë!
A wonderfully thoughtful essay, Elle. When man made science his religion, he ruled out magic and miracles as superstition. But if we listen to our instincts and our hearts, we know that there is more to life than “the facts.” There is still magic in the world. Fiction (storytelling) is a perfect example. How can someone create stories (even whole worlds) just by imagining them. It’s magic. Fiction transports us to someplace beyond reality. Music is another magic that has survived the ages. Long live magic!
There truly is still magic in the world. Thanks Mark!
Recently, one scientist came up with the theory that creative people get their ideas by communicating with parallel universes. I like this idea.
Sounds like magic. 😉🤣
Ha! I don't think I'm doing that...