Fantasy and the Sense of Wonder

Eras come up and go, and phantasy narratives go on to be spun. New writers go on from the apparent horizons where others have got retired; it reminds me of the passing play of a torch. Sometimes its been a raging firebrand and at other times a barely-smoking wick.

Slowly, though, these plant have got built up a modern mythology that mirrors all the trials and adversities we face in existent life - and uncovers to us our most cherished hopes and deepest fears.

The truth is that charming is everywhere; it's all around us. We've simply trained our eyes not to see it. Science, religion, and other pillars of our civilization have got pulled the blinds and darkened our suite until it's go hard to see much else beyond the surface of things.

Personally, I happen the being of wizards, say, easier to believe in than the impression that life began as the result of a "Big Bang" detonation of dead substance millions of old age ago, or that our ideas and feelings are the result of chemical reactions going off in our brains. But believing in the "reality" of aces is beside the point anyway. I'm content with knowing that the world didn't look quite the same to me after I read about Merlin in T.H. White's "The Once and Future King".

The world had changed because the story had awoken in me a sense of wonder.

Wonder feeds our souls, maintains us youthful, and sees that our lives don't go predictable and stale. Children are naturally in touching with it; that's 1 ground why they run around with five times the energy as the remainder of us. Everything in their world is fresh and new. We grownups be given to bury how to be awake in the minute like that. Hopefully there will always be great phantasy narratives to remind us.

It's easy to descry person who's lost touching with the magic. They travel like they're carrying a heavy weight. When they're going someplace they rarely look around; their eyes stare consecutive ahead, or bend towards the land at their feet. Even when in company they look alone. Maybe those people believe the myth of science, and are convinced that their life is the result of billions of random accidents occuring since the beginning of the world. They never heard or read somes story that said that their birth was a charming event.

If you're fold to such as a person, maybe you could give him or her a gentle nudge. If they read, you might present them to the "Wheel of Time" series - allow them forget, for a time, about the modern incubuses of terrorism and warfare as they follow the battles of fictional characters living in another time and place, facing a antic - but familiar - shadow encroaching upon their world. For the chronically hard-headed, maybe a fictional history by Mercedes Lackey or Jacqueline Carey would make the trick; allow them believe they're reading for the educational value, until the captivation wins them over.

By the time they're through they might experience as if there's something of the hero within themselves, too. Fantasy have a manner of reminding us that we're all life within a great story, steeped in enigma and charming for all time.