Word Prisms

Magical thinking is the belief that one’s thoughts, actions, words or use of symbols can influence events in the physical world. 1   Children and adults before the age of science used magical thinking to explain the world, like religion. Some would argue that religion still plays that role today. I was quite big on magical thinking as a kid and still slip into the habit as an adult. My mother put huge pressure on me to do well in school to which I responded with magical thinking rather than applying myself to activities that would actually make a difference. For example, if I got to the gate with the garbage before the back door swung shut, I would get into university. If I sunk ten hoops in a row in the backyard, I’d do well in my upcoming piano exam. I’m sure you can see the stupidity of it. It’s all about feeling safe. I sought that reassurance in an activity over which I felt I had control. Before science, people sought control of weather and disease in th...

Crank phone with shared line A little over a year ago, my wife and I cancelled the landline for our home phone. The number was transferred to Nicola marking the end of an era. No more checking phone messages at the end of a holiday. No more telemarketing. No more phoning our house and wondering who’ll pick up. (which our daughter misses the most. Now, she has to decide which parent she’ll phone where before, it was a crap shoot.)   The landline symbolized home. To know a phone number was to know an address. It began with a stem phone with common connection shared among neighbours followed by the rotary phone, then the pushbutton phone and finally, the cordless phone. And then, the cell phone. The cell phone has no sense of place. It goes with its owner to work, a restaurant, a friend’s, on holiday or the side of the road where it fell from a pocket.   The old television with rabbit ears In the same tradition of our landline,...