Where did all the magic go?

What did I want?

I wanted a Roc's egg. I wanted a harem loaded with lovely odalisques less than the dust beneath my chariot wheels, the rust that never stained my sword. I wanted raw red gold in nuggets the size of your fist and feed that lousy claim jumper to the huskies! I wanted to get up feeling brisk and go out and break some lances, then pick a likely wench for my droit de seigneur -- I wanted to stand up to the Baron and dare him to touch my wench! I wanted to hear the purple water chuckling against the skin of the Nancy Lee in the cool of the morning watch and not another sound, nor any movement save the slow tilting of the wings of the albatross that had been pacing us the last thousand miles.

I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me, "The game's afoot!" I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and the Lost Dauphin.

I wanted Prester John, and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake. I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon. I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid. I wanted the world to be what they promised me it was going to be -- instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is.

Robert A. Heinlein, Glory Road


And that sums up my thoughts on everything that is going wrong with the world.

I am tired and disenchanted, and there seems NO POINT to anything. We run 'round and 'round, hamsters on a wheel, moving without going anywhere. And I don't think I can stand living like that.

I want miracles. I want dragons soaring overhead, wild magic filling the air with sparks, and fire, and ice. I want swords with names, and great heroes to wield them. I want ogres, and werewolves, and dark things that scream in the night. I want the threat of immediate death hanging in the air. I want a moonlit landscape, with lightning in the background, and its just me, my horse, and my wits against the Dark.

Instead, I get this fucked up little corner of the world, where small things happen to even smaller people. Where things don't matter, YOU don't matter, not in the grand scheme of things. You're a fucking pawn, the smallest cog in the machine.

The world has become staid, and plain. The magic that humanity held, and coveted, and fought for, and bled for, died and killed for, is gone. We've forgotten how to dream.

And that is a small truth.