It Must Be Magic

Mitch Hobish Growth, Innovation, Leadership, Productivity

A little item has crossed my desk twice in the past week. As is often the case, it came from two different correspondents, a continent apart. How and why such things spread is worthy of another post, but for now, allow me to point you to this:

A little thought and some research that confirmed my hypothesis was very satisfying, both as to understanding the mechanism, and a self-generated pat-on-the-back for having derived the physical basis of the phenomenon myself.

But this got me thinking, particularly as the folks from whom I received the original link were left stonkered. It’s not that they were stonkered, although I’m sure they could have done their own research, but rather that in the absence of a quickly reached explanation, they both seemed to default to something akin to “It must be magic!”

Now, I love magic, if by such we mean demonstrations of selective inattention that cause the audience to wonder at how the trick was done. It does not mean something supernatural, but this is basically what I inferred from my correspondents context-setting comments.

Questions:  How do you react when faced with something outside your experience, routine or otherwise? Are you willing to extend yourself to try to find an answer? What are the consequences to your sense of self if you do not make such an attempt?