Realization

Every miraculous journey
begins with a realization.

Realization is original thought.
It is not recitation, mimicry or rote.

Epiphany is magnificent realization.
It is not recitation, mimicry or rote.

Traditional learning emphasizes recitation, mimicry and rote.
By contrast, Wizard Academy leads each student to his or her own personal realization and epiphany.

Or at least we try.

Sometimes that epiphany will happen during the student’s time on campus.
Other times it will happen during their trip home.

We do not control the epiphany. We simply stimulate those parts of the mind that are often overlooked.

A realization is fully original to every individual it comes upon, even if that same realization has been had by millions of other people over the centuries.

Wizard Academy doesn’t teach you what to think.
We teach you how to think for yourself.

Today’s Monday Morning Memo contained a closing filter:

“I cannot tell you what combination of information and events will give a particular customer confidence. I cannot list the little raindrop answers. And when the sad day arrives that someone finally can, human beings will no longer be magical.”

Some people will be uneasy about the language I used to make my point. They will say to themselves, “Humans aren’t magical and it’s silly to say that we are. Everything can be reduced to action and reaction, cause and effect. We live in an orderly universe and anyone who thinks or speaks of magic has chosen to live in an earlier age.”

Those people would have preferred me to say, “The charm of humanity lies, at least in part, in our inexplicable individualism. Each of us is formed by a chaotic and never-ending series of influences and choices that I doubt will ever be understood well enough for humans to be fully predictable to marketers. And should the day ever come that humans become fully predictable, I fear that a beautiful part of the human experience will be lost.”

See? I know how to phrase a thought so that the minimum
number of people are alienated. I’m an ad writer by profession, remember?
But an important part of the art of advertising is knowing how to drive away those people who will most likely be disappointed in what you are offering.

My intentional alienation of these persons – via the filters I include in my writing – is an act of kindness toward them. If they are likely to be frustrated by you and me, why would I wish them to come here?

For the record, romance and poetry and art and music are completely magical. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Roy H. Williams,
appearing in the rabbit hole
by special permission of His Highness, Indiana Beagle