Magic flying by

If I have learnt anything, it is that life forms no logical patterns. It is haphazard and full of beauties which I try to catch as they fly by, for who knows whether any of them will ever return? Margot Fonteyn

I am woman. I am an emotional being. I am not my emotions. My emotions are not me.

In The Diary of Anne Frank a moment that resonates with me every spring was her telling of how, while hiding with her family from the Gestapo, she would put her head beside a boarded up window and breathe in the smells of spring that seeped through the cracks. Hidden in a secret room, far from prying eyes, with fear and terror all around as the world careened into madness, she lifted her spirits on the promise of spring to release her from her place of darkness.

Within the illogical and senseless need for the Frank family to hide-out, there was beauty in that breath of air wafting through the cracks. There was beauty in her spirit as she sought to alleviate the sad and tragic surroundings of her day. Ann Frank caught each moment flying by, never letting fear override her belief in the possibility of life beyond the darkness.

In my life I have been called, Pollyanna, terminally perky, an eternal optimist. I have, even in my darkest moments, sought the light. Sought those moments of release from sorrow and pain by looking for rainbows flying through the air. For moonbeams dancing in the starlight.

I have never been disappointed.

They are always there. Just as the sun always shines behind swollen grey clouds, moments of magic hang suspended in the air, no matter my disposition, no matter my outlook.

It is, for me, an irrefutable fact of the universe.

Magic exists. Everywhere.

And just to prove it, I have a special treat for you in this Ted talk with master magician and brain technologist, Keith Barry. Arthur C. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Keith Barry's software engineering of the human brain is indistinguisable from magic. Witty and direct, he celebrates human cleverness even while he's hacking it.