Here is some food for thought for you all. Long day at work today. Nothing out of the ordinary, just another mediocre day. I did my job, I got ready to leave. The only thing unusual the entire day was the fact that there is an airshow here this weekend and the world famous Blue Angels were to perform. In fact, my building shook all day with the sounds of them practicing.
Here I am, at the end of a boring day at work. I leave the building. It’s hot and humid outside. I call my wife to tell her I am heading home for the day. I look up to the sky and stop mid sentence, mid stride, in the middle of the lane in the parking lot. There, in the sky ahead of me, are four glistening blue and yellow F-18s in diamond formation rocketing vertically into the sky with their smoke on. My jaw dropped, and for a moment my wife thought I had died. As I drove home, under this crazy spell, I went the long way through town which put me out by the airfield where the Angels were practicing. They did a low flyby (probably 50’ – 100’) right over me when I was driving. I spent every spare moment watching this incredible, unexpected sight until my drive had taken me so far I could no longer see them.
As I drove away, I realized something crazy. I had just witnessed magic. I had just been thrown into such an unexpected state of astonishment that I forgot everything else for a moment of my life. Yes, I know how jets work. I used to hope to be a fighter pilot. Knowing how these jets worked did not stop me from having this incredible moment. I had to sit back down and think hard about the entire thing to really understand why this was magic to me.
First, this was unexpected. I wasn’t leaving work to go see fighter jets do stunts. I was having a very ordinary day. Something unexpected and very extraordinary changed everything.
Second, the impossibility of the act defied the fact that I knew how it was done and had seen it before. None of that mattered. The fact that I was watching something so incredible took precedence over the fact that humans have been at this flying game for quite some time now.
Third, it took me back to my childhood, or to better times gone by. I remembered my long forgotten dreams of flying jets. I remembered watching planes fly by as a kid and marveling at the idea. It took me out of “now” and put me somewhere else. For a while, I forgot all the mediocrity of the boring day and had the best day in recent memory.
Now, I don’t want to have to do all the work for you in tying magic into this. I will leave this here for those of you who care to do something with it. All I will tell you is that as I looked skyward and stared, I was taken back to the first time I saw a magic trick as a kid. I felt the same feeling. I saw real magic.
Here I am, at the end of a boring day at work. I leave the building. It’s hot and humid outside. I call my wife to tell her I am heading home for the day. I look up to the sky and stop mid sentence, mid stride, in the middle of the lane in the parking lot. There, in the sky ahead of me, are four glistening blue and yellow F-18s in diamond formation rocketing vertically into the sky with their smoke on. My jaw dropped, and for a moment my wife thought I had died. As I drove home, under this crazy spell, I went the long way through town which put me out by the airfield where the Angels were practicing. They did a low flyby (probably 50’ – 100’) right over me when I was driving. I spent every spare moment watching this incredible, unexpected sight until my drive had taken me so far I could no longer see them.
As I drove away, I realized something crazy. I had just witnessed magic. I had just been thrown into such an unexpected state of astonishment that I forgot everything else for a moment of my life. Yes, I know how jets work. I used to hope to be a fighter pilot. Knowing how these jets worked did not stop me from having this incredible moment. I had to sit back down and think hard about the entire thing to really understand why this was magic to me.
First, this was unexpected. I wasn’t leaving work to go see fighter jets do stunts. I was having a very ordinary day. Something unexpected and very extraordinary changed everything.
Second, the impossibility of the act defied the fact that I knew how it was done and had seen it before. None of that mattered. The fact that I was watching something so incredible took precedence over the fact that humans have been at this flying game for quite some time now.
Third, it took me back to my childhood, or to better times gone by. I remembered my long forgotten dreams of flying jets. I remembered watching planes fly by as a kid and marveling at the idea. It took me out of “now” and put me somewhere else. For a while, I forgot all the mediocrity of the boring day and had the best day in recent memory.
Now, I don’t want to have to do all the work for you in tying magic into this. I will leave this here for those of you who care to do something with it. All I will tell you is that as I looked skyward and stared, I was taken back to the first time I saw a magic trick as a kid. I felt the same feeling. I saw real magic.
