Guest Blogger: Thoughts for Thursday

Guest Blogger:
Brandy STEW , Allergy Mom

The scientific age we live in is annoying, particularly when something magical happens and people reduce it to chance, or say, ‘You are just noticing opportunities that have always been there because of your new interest.’  Truly, I am a fan of science and its many inventions that contribute to my personal happiness: hot showers, apps on the iphone, half-caf soy hazelnut extra-hot lattes and more.  But if you look back in time, the age of science is just a pimple on the huge oily face of human history – we believed in magic a lot longer than science as we know it existed, and perhaps, just perhaps, we have it wrong.

Here is an example of magic from my boring little day.  I’m psyching myself up to lose weight (again) and on the way to work listened to an audiobook about building a training and nutrition plan.  It mentioned having a support team, and one of the things suggested was having a co-worker help pull you from the ledge when you are tempted to eat the world.  I pondered that on and off throughout my workday.  Hours later, completely unsolicited and off topic, a new employee I barely know mentions that he has an eating plan he’s kept to for two years, and if I ever need help dodging the junk food in the kitchen, to give him a call.  I goggled and sputtered at this amazing display of ESP. Then I told him I’d add him to speed dial for the 2pm, 2:40pm, 3:17pm and 4:25pm munchie attacks, and his smile didn’t even falter.  Perhaps he noticed the size of my can and thought to improve the work environment, but I prefer to think his perfectly timed offer was magic.

More examples: I stop nagging my husband about something and he suddenly starts focusing on it – that’s magic.  I threaten to come home with a new car when the air conditioner dies on the sedan and hubby threatens to commit me– not magic.  But when a family member says they can fix it two days later – that’s magic.

Perhaps what I’m learning is that science is about stuff and magic is about people.  We may want to bathe, play and drink science, but people are unmistakably magical.  We create, we connect, and we intuit each other’s needs.  Hopefully we’ll stop using words like ‘coincidence’ and start acknowledging that something bigger is at play here, bigger than luck, or even my can.