Seeing the Wizard’s Feet
There’s a moment in The Wizard of Oz that stuck with me. It wasn’t all of the colours, the songs or even the reveal at the end. It was the wizards feet.
Ordinary, human feet of the wizard, sticking out behind the curtain. Once you see them, you can’t unsee them and that’s a strangely… comforting thought.
The comfort of seeing the mechanism 🧵🔧
Most people prefer the front of the tapestry. The clean picture, the version that makes sense at a glance. I’ve always been more interested in the back.
The knots, crossed threads; awkward joins holding everything together. How something is built matters more to me than how it looks finished. It doesn’t ruin the magic, it just changes what the magic is.
Nonsense as a coping strategy ♠️🌀
Then there is Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll wasn’t being random.
He was showing that using rational logic isn’t enough.
In Wonderland:
- rules only exist because someone says they do
- authority is arbitrary
- logic loops back on itself
- contradictions are not only allowed, they are encouraged
That isn’t chaos, It’s just a different type of structure.
Not straight lines more like something curved.
For me, nonsense is useful.
Some ideas won’t survive on clean logic.
They need a bit of distortion to come through intact.
Paradox and comedic logic 🤹♂️⚖️
Some situations don’t resolve properly, they just are… They’re not fair, but they’re not exactly unfair either.
Trying to force a clean answer onto them usually makes things worse. Paradox works better and comedy always helps too. Not because things are funny, but because humour lets two conflicting things exist at the same time without forcing any conclusions.
You don’t have to pick a side.
You just see it for what it is.
Looking behind the curtain 🎭🧠
Seeing the wizard’s feet isn’t cynicism; It’s just noticing how things are put together, how everything interacts. Once you can see the strings and seams, you stop expecting things to be perfect, the mess jut becomes more obvious.
You start preferring things to be honest. Messy honesty is easier to deal with than the polished illusion.
Why this is comforting 🛠️😌
When you accept that:
- rules are often arbitrary
- fairness is sometimes performative
- meaning is put together, not discovered
things get quieter. You stop waiting for everything to make sense. You stop needing it to.
Final thought 🔚✨
Some people want the illusion to hold. I want to see how it’s built. Not to tear it down, just to understand it.