Tuesday, August 5, 2014

A Magical World

It's Tuesday, so it's time for my weekly random question...

In fantasy stories, there is a subgenre where people manage to travel through portals to other worlds, either to get into ours or to get away from it. These other worlds (the ones that aren't ours) always seem to contain magic...

What if our world was the world that was the most magical?

15 comments:

  1. I was watching Bear Grylls (sp?) last night - the one with Ben Stiller and they entered this cave (for shelter) and I immediately said to my family - that looks like one of those places where you walk in and pop out somewhere else. They didn't - it was magical though...completely different than the places I go - ever! And beautiful in a certain way. So, I suppose our world is the most magical. We just have to get out of our routines and regular routes and be willing to open our eyes to the magic.
    Now, if by magic, you mean "MAGIC - ta-dah!" - then I want my magic to be flying or transporting or popping her, there and beyond with the wink of an eye. And some kind of magic that will make me gloriously fit while eating ice cream...is that too much to ask?

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    1. I like to let you all interpret the questions any way you see fit, so that first paragraph is a good answer.

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  2. We have beautiful nature and flowers and art and architecture so it is wondrous but I think of magical like Harry Potter or to have the abilities that Samantha does from Bewitched. If I could wiggle my nose to make my BIF(bum in front) smaller I would do it:)

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  3. If our world was the most magical, I would wonder how the others were :) We do have some magical things here though; a baby's smile, the roar of the ocean, how the air smells after a rain shower, etc. So I think if ours was the most magical, it would be a very good place to live :)

    betty

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  4. At first, I thought it might be kind of depressing, if our world was the highest magic (and doesn't seem very magical.) Then I started thinking about what that would really be like and here is what I came up with. Think about North America, or Europe, versus say Africa or South America. To me, our wildlife and scenery (at least in the Midwest) seems kind of boring and mundane, and African and South America see amazing. So I always wondered if to people from Africa, it might seem amazing to see squirrels and robins hanging out. I thought maybe that must be true but then I decided that objectively, lions and elephants are far more impressive than foxes and the occasional black bear.

    Then I met someone from Thailand who told me that monkeys living there are pests like squirrels and that they come down onto your porch and steal your breakfast, which just drove home the point and sounds amazing.

    So I guess I'm back to yeah, sure, our world is pretty amazing, don't get me wrong, but if it's the best that's kind of a letdown, because when I look out the world and see a chipmunk eating a nut, I should know that somewhere there is the magic-world equivalent of monkeys stealing your breakfast.

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    1. That's a good way to think about it. Perhaps we have things that other worlds would consider magical. I mean, think about airplanes. We can fly through the sky! It seems rather mundane to us (and annoying when we have to go through TSA), but to a people where that isn't possible...

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  5. I think Briane has a great point. When I went to the US I couldn't believe you had cute little squirrels running around the city areas. I can't believe they're pests. I often wonder how the English/Irish convicts felt when they arrived in Australia 200ish years ago. It must have seemed like a magical other world with our heat, weird unique animals and flora.

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  6. Just the miracle of birth alone is enough to believe that!

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  7. I'd be all right with it as long as I knew there was more magic to be found in our world. For me, true magic equals peace, and I'm not seeing much of that around me. But I still want to believe it's a possibility.

    VR Barkowski

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  8. But it IS the most magical. *covering up porthole opening device* ;)

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  9. The most magical is good. But if magical means perfect, I wouldn't like it. It'd make us complacent. Imperfection and conflict gives us something to work toward.

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    1. If we had perfection, there would be no point, would there?

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  10. So much of our everyday experience could easily be interpreted as magic. I'm still amazed that just by flipping a switch the lights come on.

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I appreciate your comments.

I respond to comments* via email, unless your profile email is not enabled. Then, I'll reply in the comment thread. Eventually. Probably.

*Exception: I do not respond to "what if?" comments, but I do read them all. Those questions are open to your interpretation, and I don't wish to limit your imagination by what I thought the question was supposed to be.