LONDON - If you want to find the magic on this planet of ours, then why not hunt out those classic fields of wheat, rolling under the summer sun? Or stroll through city parks for a season, and watch the plants change, day by day? A leaf here, a new colour there, until before you know it, the whole scene has changed and obliterated your memory of how it was before.
That's what people want, isn't it? Wonder.
But how can this be magic, when it took screaming metals to clear the land, budget considerations to plant the wheat and genetic engineering to make it look so good? And don't forget a big thank you to the unobtrusive men in the council who keep our parks shit-free.
Don't worry, we did not take the magic away. There was never any there in the first place. We marvel at the thought of untouched rain forests, but only because we are limited by ignorance and romanticism.
What we know of nature shows it to be based on a series of triggers with predictable results.
Water and sunlight lead to growth. Good eyesight means you'll live longer, and strong legs mean you can forage for food further afield. When they belong to animals, that is.
The fit blokes working out at your local gym before popping into Tesco Metro have screwed that theory, as have the boys in Calcutta who destroy their knees to beg better. Life is a miracle, yes, but you won't need to book a flight to the jungle to see it.
It's not nature that sets us free, it's the time spent watching it. Those cheap trips to the seaside and walks in the woods are happy times that give us the space to piece together the past and to dream up alternatives for the future. If nature wasn't so predictable, we could not have defined the Lazy Sunday Afternoon or the Early Morning Jog as ideal uses for it. In truth, we need nature desperately to help us maintain a sense of stability. Why else is it so frightening to lose all sight of green?
What man-made event has ever gone as planned? Name one consistent emotion. The real surprises of life lie inside our own minds. And we will use any pattern, any system or routine we can find to deny that magic.
Why else do we regularly take time out to concoct a past and project a future? Why bother spending thousands of years debating our origins, only to cram the issues into a moral code that promises rewards if you follow it, and punishment if you don't?
Our brains are chaotic and contradictory. The latest research shows that there is no co-ordinating organ inside anyone's head. The urge to assert, the need for comfort and the rational explainer are fighting it out between themselves. All the time. But you only have one mouth.
Things get serious when you start making up the world around you. Seeing a chance gesture as symbolic of a situation and acting on it can turn to schizophrenia. It leaves you unable to keep the voices inside from shouting aloud, through your own mouth. And it becomes worse if you think people are conspiring against you. There are enough magic tricks in your head to surprise Tarzan himself.
This whole life business is a response to multiple stimuli. We are like the trees seeking water, but we also want novelty, stability, climaxes, peace, independence and support. Even that could be simple, except we're guessing as we go along. We are trying to piece it all together to make the future easier - yet creating more possibilities with every step. Such is the paradox of life. We crave stability but operate in chaos.
I have always found that paradoxes are the only constants available. They may be too rigid in themselves to conjure up the magic in life, but at least they show us how to deal with it.
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