Not long ago I was watching television and wanted to change the channel but the remote control was on the other side of the room. Being lazy by nature, I decided that, instead of getting up to fetch the remote, I would telekinetically draw it to my hand like Luke Skywalker did in "The Empire Strikes Back" when he was trapped in the ice cave and his light saber was out of reach.
Luke was able to use The Force and the light saber flew into his hand. He then cut himself free and defeated the ice monster. Despite my best efforts to let The Force flow through me, to project my will and to believe it could be done, the remote stubbornly refused to budge. I resigned myself to the fact that I would never be a Jedi Knight, so I got off the couch and grabbed the remote.
Then it struck me. Though I was unable to perform a feat of telekinetic magic, I realized that the "mere" act of getting up and reaching for the remote was itself a magical feat, one of astounding complexity.
First you have this conscious mind thing that seems to have a will that can direct the movements of its body. How does this happen? Philosophers, psychologists and neuro-scientists have hardly scratched the surface of all that's going on. Then there's the "simpler" mechanics of the actual motions of getting up and grabbing an object. But there's hardly anything simple about them -- there's the high number of movements coordinated by the brain (many very subtle and necessary to maintain balance and fluidity), the subsequent electro-chemical nerve impulses sent to the muscles, the complex chemical reactions that cause the muscles to contract with just the right force, the system of fueling those reactions and getting rid of the waste produced, and so on. One could spend a lifetime studying these systems and still fall well short of a complete understanding. And all I did was grab a remote.
This brought to mind a Zen parable of a conversation between two young monks. It goes something like this ...
Monk #1: "My master can do many amazing things like levitate 10 feet off the ground, or write on paper using only his mind."
Monk #2: "Yeah, my master can do amazing things like that, too. For example, when he's tired he sleeps and when he's hungry he eats."
The difficulty of actions that we take for granted can be seen in modern efforts to create human-like robots. Things we find difficult -- like complex mathematical calculations -- are easily accomplished with computers and have been for decades. But activity we find ordinary -- like walking down stairs -- turns out to be very challenging for robot builders. One of the most amazing feats humans do all the time is object recognition. We can walk into a room and almost instantly orient ourselves to the space and recognize major objects in it -- a kitchen: cupboards, drawers, counter, oven, microwave, fridge, chairs, table, spouse, blender, sink, dishes. Years and years and billions of dollars of research have not been able to produce that same capability in computers. But the experience is so commonplace, such a part of our everyday sense of things, we miss the wonder of it.
Popular culture in the form of TV shows, movies, books, comics and games is replete with magical elements -- superheroes, super-villains, witches, vampires, etc. Some works are all-out fantasies, others are more subtle. I have no truck with any of it (except I don't, by and large, like superheroes). I indulge the fantastical in my own fiction. It can be fun and even instructive if used to explore themes in ways not otherwise possible.
Yet, I think this form of escapism suggests a yearning for magic and the supernatural that can make folks lose sight of the magic that's already all around them and, indeed, encompasses themselves.
I intended to write more but I recalled a song written by Antônio Carlos Jobim. There's really nothing I can say that would make my point better than this beautiful rendition by Luciana Souza, -- *Waters of March
No comments:
Post a Comment