The magic in your mind
There is an entity in all of our minds capable of brewing magic.
But it’s a cripplingly shy child1. All the other entities in the mind are quite unlike it and seem to be able to sit at the kitchen table, chat, laugh and get each others’ jokes, whereas the child wants to hide behind the sofa and look at pictures in Letters from Father Christmas.
The adult entities think its actions are cute, sometimes endearing, sometimes annoying, mostly not to be taken seriously. What does this shy, underconfident youngling know of ‘how the world actually works’. It doesn’t understand the actual mechanics of society, politics, government, its toy-like ideas are simply not pragmatic.
But if you’ve ever spent time with an almost too shy person, you would have learnt that politeness is insufficient to draw them out, to get them to talk to you. Their instinct is to hide, for the people and the world around seem ‘not like them’. It is only with constant gentle affection that you will build trust with them. Indifference to their thoughts is not mere indifference, but a rejection of their ideas.
Jony Ive talks about having deep respect and care for your ideas, all kinds of ideas, because “if you treat your ideas with respect, you increase the probability of having good ones”.
I wonder if merely having constant affection for the shy padawan within might help discover magic?
Famous ‘almost too shy’ people - Enrico Fermi, Sir Jony Ive