Our modern world is full of gadgets and hee haws that we take for granted. But these everyday appliances, tools and devices would be wonders to people who have never had access to them.
If you've ever seen the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy" you'll remember the Coca-Cola bottle that a peaceful tribe of pygmies found. They had never seen anything as smooth and as strong. They believed it came from the gods. It was very useful for grinding yams, but soon the tribe began fighting over it, and eventually the bottle was used by one tribe member to strike another one. That was when the leader of the tribe decided to give it back to the gods because it was an evil thing, and went out to find the edge of the world to throw it back.
A Coca Cola bottle. Extraordinary.
But there are a lot of things we take for granted. In another movie, the ability of writing to convey a message was considered either magic or the work of demons by a society that never learned to write. The white man scrawled a secret a native had told him on a paper, then handed it to his friend, who read it, and told the native what his secret was. Unfortunately this kind of "magic" was frowned upon and the story didn't end well, but writing was a wondrous thing.
Imagine the glory of a sink faucet to someone who has always had to seek out precious water, or the wonder of him seeing his own image on film.
A car would be seen as a nearly indestructible beast made of stone that carried people in its belly and spread noxious fumes from its behind.
Stories about magic are very entertaining, but our real world seen through eyes of wonder can be just as exciting.
In my novel Sahara, the heroine is completely taken by many modern conveniences, such as the refrigerator, and the wonderful toilet bowl that just swirls the muck away. At first, she thought it was a little pool to drink from. lol. And let's not forget the fun of the toilet paper roll.
The point I'm trying to make is that it is important to see the magic in the things we take for granted and be able to convey that feeling of wonder to others in a story. We really do live in a wonderful world.
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