Magic
I - like many people - have always yearned to enter the pages of certain fairy tales and stories. Not just to immerse myself in reading the words or watching a movie but to actually walk into that world as a participant in the magical experiences. Instead of growing out of this desire or trying to create an environment where I could pretend I was in one of these fantasies, I started suspecting that this yearning is an innate hunger for certain things that are real and necessary for our existence but hidden from our physical senses for some reason.
Disneyland obviously resonated with me and on my first trip to the park as a child I felt that Walt Disney must’ve had the same yearning to step in to the world of fantasy. I not only enjoyed stepping into the pages of the stories that he told, my suspicions on the hidden reality were increased. For even though being immersed in a human fantasy was enjoyable, I could tell it was still just an improvement on books or movies. It did not bring about a full satisfaction for the yearnings I have.
Enter Music. Music, it seem to me, could sometimes be one of those things that while remaining within the grasp of our physical senses, the melody and emotions it conveys sometimes seems to be coming from a world beyond. Performing such music sometimes gives me the feeling that I’m actually participating in a magical reality that is real, but hidden. But there are other aspects of the world that we can touch and see that I have come to believe the same thing about these. I’ve also discovered I'm not alone with such thoughts.
Einstein once said that while Beethoven created his music, Mozart's "was so pure that it seemed to have been ever-present in the universe, waiting to be discovered by the master." Einstein believed much the same of physics, that beyond observations and theory lay the music of the spheres — which, he wrote, revealed a "pre-established harmony" exhibiting stunning symmetries. The laws of nature, such as those of relativity theory, were waiting to be plucked out of the cosmos by someone with a sympathetic ear.
I don’t claim to have found the world’s greatest ideas or music but I “find” patterns in nature, in math, in languages and several songs that I have “written” felt like I found them, like I heard them complete in my mind when they came to me. I believe God has created these patterns, thoughts, and sounds for us to find and I think it is interesting that even an agnostic/deist like Einstein saw the same thing and came close to giving God the credit for his ideas.
During my work career I have enjoyed "making the magic" with Disney and other themed entertainment companies but this is not the kind of magic I'm trying to describe on this page. Because I have a personal bias and interest in these things I have become increasingly aware of these divine fingerprints all around us and I don’t believe the experience is as limited as I first thought, nor is it limited to a few people with peculiar ideas. While I still yearn for a reality beyond what I can see and touch right now, I find great joy and thankfulness in being able to recognize the many amazing elements in the here and now. Walking in the magic.