The Magic of Humans

Do you know that feeling? The gut wrenching, heart breaking, soul pinching feeling that this world inevitably subjects us too?

Disappointment.

Yes, that’s the one.

People have a lot of ways of coping with it. Alcohol is one of them probably the most popular one. Religion is another. Then you have hobbies among all the other things.

There is this one thing though, that by popular judgment gives us a break from reality, and it makes us believe and hope and wonder. It makes all other sadness, and disappointment disappear. Some do this as a passion. Some as a hobby and the others because it just makes you absolutely awesome.

This thing I’m talking about has several different names and forms.

Magic and fantasy being two of the names, two of the best names.

Imagination a slightly more realistic definition. It’s more socially acceptable.

Then you have the harshest, realistic word. One that I’d consider an offense. Only the meanest, worstest of people would use that term for what we do. It’s called, Delusion.

This intangible, yet tangible thing that we call belief, hope and all other things that are wonderful comes in the various forms.

Popularly those forms are known as Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The BFG, Some wonderfully mushy love story. Any other book, story, movie, show, musical or play. The other most hopeful forms of this delightful magic are the writers.

Think about it, everything important and note-worthy is written down, whether it is by a government official or a student in elementary school. Even history as we know it today wouldn’t be what it was, as we know it today if someone didn’t write it down. Writing is binding and eternal. And most of what I just acknowledged about what people write is because they have too, not because they want to, yet there’s a significant amount of truth to it. To those legal documents and classroom notes.

So could you possibly imagine how much weight there is, how much spirit and soul, heart and love that those who write with their own will pour out onto paper. However little fact it may contain, however little science. It exists, some part of it exists. It has to. There is no other way to explain it.

Writers or creators. Kings of their own worlds. Music players and actors. Readers and admirers. Our worlds of Jedi knights, dragons. Twinkling stars and thieves. Music, swords and spells. Love and magic, oh and what almost palpable forms of love and magic. The beauty of similes, metaphors and syntax. The twist of complexity of words with the most casual meaning. Or the simplest words which can portray the truth of all truths. Its there, and it happens.

We all believe in the love that Lily Potter had for Harry, the love Snape had for lily. The friendship that Lupin, Sirius, James shared. The tightly bound Weasely family. The brains and the beauty of Hermoine Granger, I mean, she got Viktor Krum right?

Or what about Roald Dahl’s trying to express through Willy Wonka, that it is ok to be different and weird. He expresses the rarity of someone like Sophie who knows that all giants are terrible and eat human beans, doesn’t mean that the BFG does too, she didn’t judge him. She helped set him free. She believed that all he wanted to do was blow dreams into houses. Wonderful dreams for people to dream.

Those wonderfully mushy love stories that I said are magical? The intensity they express about what something as simple as looking into someone’s eyes can do. The guy, who said that the eyes are the windows to the soul, knew what he was talking about. Or that electric feeling you get when you accidentally find your fingers touch that other persons fingers.

By ‘that person’ I mean the person you day dream about, and the person you tell your friends about. The person that makes you start your sentences when you talk about them with a smile and a sigh, a blush or a giggle.

What I mean is that, all the things, and everything magical has some truth. The reason we don’t see this truth is because we don’t believe in people anymore. We’ve lost that ability to see what sets us apart from everything alive in this universe.

We can love so much that we can experience selflessness. We can be brave like Harry. We can learn how not to judge people like Sophie. We could look into person’s eyes and see their soul if only we took the time too. It is possible to be with that particular someone that you like more than you like normal people without doubting them and we can get over doubt. Doubt won’t let us live the way we were meant too.

The truth that I was talking about which exists? We are it.

That is the only reason we believe it to be true.

The truth of magic lies in humanity. It lies within us.

I believe that the reason we believe in all the aforementioned sources of awesome is because subconsciously we know that people with the eccentricities like Jack Sparrow, Eragon and Harry are capable of existing.

I know that we can be magical if we want to. Lets not let the thought of 'We're only human' stop us from being great.

Even if we practice all this and it does go to waste, there is always the human virtue of forgiveness that has been written about. Or the one of being happy or content. The one of rising above things that are beyond your control or by leaving it in the hands of a supernatural being after you’ve given it all you’ve got.

If it doesn’t work, we could always just have a Lord of the rings movie marathon, watch lots of Disney movies, drink hot chocolate and read our favorite books. (Read Dr. Seuss, he doesn’t care how old you are. He can fix anything)

All I think is, that before we are completely doomed and begin to suffer from lack of good writing, good music and good company, vibrant imaginations, a conscience and the popular notion of good, mad fun and the concept of insanity being the new sanity we should make some MAGIC.

Then one day, when this world is run by Cyborgs and all of, or whatever remains of us humans is what we have written. There will be a lot of cyborgs to whom our race, would be a kind that they dream of and imagine and think of as we think of Dumbledore or Dobby. They’ll believe that we our magical and we’ll be right up there on the shelves among Dragons, Elves, Wizards and other things wonderful.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9104338/Uncle-Wal-was-definitely-Roald-Dahls-BFG.html

Copyright © Kanika Chopra. 2012.