the world is full of magic

This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful,
inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it. [Thomas Dekker]


Walking through the woods this morning I was reminded of a line from the Disney movie Brother Bear (be advised this a judgment-free zone!) in which an old bear narrates: the world is full of magic. Small things become big. Winter turns to spring. One thing always changes into another.



As frogs jumped into the swamp near my feet and I avoided pebble and puddle along the path I simply stared at the blue sky and grinned like a fool, even as dogwalker and bike rider eyebrows were raised quizzically. Earlier this morning, you see, a friend had commented that it's interesting that the prettiest times of the year are those of transition: the wondrous birth of spring and the brilliant passing of autumn, and that gave me pause. Is it true? Are we most pleased by change, the rest of the year--our lives--marked by placated settling? I'm not sure. I'm wary of being so reliant on warmth and plants for energy and infusions of life, so in defiance of such dependence, I simply shrug my shoulders and smile. All I know is what Thomas Dekker says. And what an old kodiak bear says: this world is, indeed, still a miracle. May that not be limited to what our human pleasure makes of season.

As a biology major, I often feel trapped in this settling for knowledge, and while it is marvelous to know about seedless plants and serotinous cones and squids with eyes the size of dinner plates and so-called water bears--microscopic extremophiles able to enter into a state called cryptobiosis that allows them to survive in dehydrated conditions for at least ten years and the conditions of outer space for up to ten days--I despair of knowledge becoming the measure, and would much rather revel in the imagining of what I do not know than rest somewhat narcissistically in the knowledge I do have. Rather than accruing an impressive wealth of "facts," I'd prefer my education to arouse more questions than answers, laying the groundwork for a life of searching and seeking--hopefully finding, too, though I'm content (perhaps) to suspend that until that next place. In researching for an article on the biotechnological revolution I had to write for my school's journal, I encountered a frustrating narcissism in the opinions of scientists eager to categorize science's creative capabilities in terms of ever-evolving processes and methodologies. My first paragraph ended up an amalgam of desire for knowledge and desire for imagination-pure, unspoiled and unadulterated dwelling in the realm of what-if, the realm of endless possibility:

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There is an anonymous poem that reads:


machines will destroy
what’s natural only if
directed by men who oppose
a part of themselves to the wholeness
of their nature.


With the question of biotechnology’s merits in mind, a first reading of this poem would appear to offer solace, because of course the human race isn’t tending toward ontological deconstruction as a result of a few powerful and self-serving scientists. Upon second reading, however, the latter portion of the poem violently asserts itself as it comes to the forefront, prefiguring men who seek mastery over themselves because they are imperfect, because dissatisfaction has given way to a sense of entitlement and sovereignty. In the twenty-first century man’s increasingly narcissistic endeavors to improve, excel and succeed, the biotechnological revolution is one of envisioned progress, one of a new anthropology tending—at least in larger situation—toward perfection. And while perfection may not be the overwhelming end, it lends itself to an extraordinary and unhealthy obsession with aspiration, an aspiration never quite to be fulfilled, an unstoked imagination.

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"That we care deeply about our children, and yet cannot choose the kind we want, teaches parents to be open to the unbidden…It invites us to abide the unexpected, to live with dissonance, to reign in the impulse to control," says Michael Sandel.


The world is full of magic. It needs to be--for all our sakes.