Harry Potter the movie and Harry Potter the book are appearing one after the other this month. I saw the movie and tonight at midnight I'll join the queue (ok, the somewhat geeky queue, but hey, it's fun!) to pick up the final installment of the series when it goes on sale. My other summer beach read this season has been the Mercedes Lackey fiction series about "elemental mages" in the late Victorian era and early 1900s in London and environs - sort of magic meets romance. The perfect hanging-in-the-hammock summer combo.
I like the notion of magic. And I like the idea that magic is logical, following a set of rules, principles, and guides. And that characters study it, master it, and find ways to expand upon it. And that it has local variations. And lots of different applications. And that it can be put to both good and evil purposes.
Hmm. Magic is a lot like technology.
Magic is a term that covers things that we don't fully understand. In my flip moments, I sometimes refer to electrical power as magic. I mean, this invisible thing makes a room light up or keeps ice frozen or pumps water from the ground. It "flows" through wires. People study it, harness it, create new things to do with it. It combines knowledge of a something from our natural world with the creative skill of our hands. In the wrong hands, it can kill people, burn down building, and cause great pain. The right hands it shapes what we can do with our daily lives.
Electricity is a technology - a magic! - that defines us.
There are lots of these magics interwoven in our lives. Like remote controls. I mean, how magic is that? You click a button and something on the other side of the room responds.
And what about wireless access? Magic streams of communication float through the air and carry invisible data!
MRI machines that "see" inside flesh. Technology? Or magic?
When we stop and study it, when we learn about the science behind it, when we understand the inner workings, we know this is technology. We know that our minds have come to understand the way the physical world operations and that we have created methods and applications for using this understanding for human purposes.
There is the perception in our world that people who work with technology are linear, non-creative types. That they need precise mathematical equations to function and that they don't understand free-form thinking or abstract concepts of beauty and imagination.
But people who work with technology are our magicians. And to be a mage requires a high level of creative thinking. Mathematics is not a static linear set of facts - it is, indeed, a language for describing the world and is every bit as fluid and descriptive as English, French, or Chinese.
To be a magician is to not only understand how the physical world functions, but to also have the creative ability to see applications where none may currently exist. Imagining the touch screen of an iPhone is as creative an act as painting a beachscape. In fact, I'd argue it is a more creative act, because there is no model to see and draw from. There is only knowledge and imaginative leaps about how that knowledge can physically manifest itself.
Unlike fictional magic, technology magic doesn't require some special set of inborn skills. Another myth of our modern day mages is that only certain kinds of people can aspire to the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The ability to perform magic is within each of us. We can choose to learn the facts and develop the skills to draw upon this part of us, or we can follow other paths. It is a choice we make, not an ability that we lack.
Technology is not a closed world. It only looks like mysterious magic when we don't learn about it, when we are afraid of it, or when we buy into the false perceptions about it. When we stop and really look, the beauty, the imagination, the creativity, and the availability of it comes shining through.
And that is the real magic, the magic that we an all help create, help shape, or simply consume every day. We live in a time of magic, but a magic that is very real and very based in the world around us.
And the study, use, or application of technology - of our very real magic - is every bit as cool and creative as Hogwarts' staircases, Harry's owls, or Snape's potions. And, better than that, it is magic we can learn and create right here, right now, in our very real Muggle world.
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