What do wizards do?

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 55042

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Lindy Brett" <moonfleet24 at h...>
wrote:
> Regarding the 'What Do Wizards Do?' thread a little while back 
> [and please bear in mind that I am new here, I've been lurking, 
> hiding overawed, its a  huge list, the archives are humoungous . . .
>  - so you have probably discussed this one ad infinitum too, but I 
> didn't notice - anyway . . . ]
> 
> Why do wizards do anything? Magic does the washing up, the knitting,
> the travelling, . . .
> 
> ...edited...
> 
> Sorry - a slightly grumpy ramble. What I am saying is, when magic 
> does so much, why bother to go to work, why get up in the morning?
> 
> Lindy


bboy_mn:

Let's say that there is magic, then there is Magic.

In the past, I made extensive posts on what wizards do and how they do
it; re: wizard's commerce, wizard's occupations, etc..., so I won't go
into all that in detail.

However, work, like many things is relative. My great grandmother and
great aunts all made bread by hand. That is not an easy task. In fact,
it is extremely laborious for somerthing as simple and basic as bread.
 If you paid someone a decent wage by the hour to make bread the old
fashioned way, a loaf of bread would probably cost $50. Once a year my
great grandmother took the rugs out of the house, hung them on the
clothes line and beat the crap out of them to get the dust and dirt
out. Compared to that, a vacuum cleaner is magic beyond what she could
even imagine. She cook on a stove that was fueled by wood; compared to
that a microwave in magic. She washed clothes in a large tub and
scrubbed them by hand against a 'washboard', compare to that, a modern
washing machine is magic. Point? Work is relative.

Let's examing a magic farmer. Spring comes and there is standing water
in his fields, so he has to use a drought charm to dry the fields. He
takes deliver of his seed, but first he must go out and use a plowing
charm to till the field, then another charm to smooth the field. Now
he has to us a planting charm to sow the seed. Followed by weeks of
watering, cultivation, and fertilization charms. In the mean time,
livestock has to be feed, cows have to be milked, eggs have to be
gathered. Now it late in the season and he needs to use a harvest
charm to gather the crops, then a transfer charm to move the crops to
storage, if the crop is grain, then he must use a drying charm to dry
the grain to the proper moisture levels, then another transfer charm
to move the crops to market, then he has to haggle and negotiate for
the sale of the crops. If he as sold the crops in a barter system, he
as to get whatever goods that were used to pay him, back to his farm.
Whew... a farmer's work is never done. I'm sure this farmer constantly
complain to his wife about how hard he works and how tedious it is
being a farmer, and how he wishes there was some way to make his job
easier. 

I can paint the same scenario for a house wife; washing charm, cooking
charms, making sure that the cooling charm is working on the cool
cupboard, and the freeze charm on the frozen cupboard, carpet vacuming
charms, dusting charms, clothes washing charms, gardening charms,
etc... etc... etc.... I'm sure when Mrs. Weasley gets done taking care
of 8 kids and a husband, she thinks she's had a long hard day even if
she was using magic. What food they don't grow has to be bought, that
means a trip to Diagon Alley which means she has to find someone to
take care of the kids while she is gone or she has to floo them all to
the store with her which make shopping that much more tedious. 

Pick any profession, and I will show you how, even with magic, it
still seems like a lot of work to the wizard who does it. Remember
that magic is normal to wizards just like computers are to today's
kids. Today's kids can't imagine having to spend hours hand writing
reports, or going all the way to the library just to look something
up. Your kids can't imagine how a world without calculators and spell
checkers and on-line encyclopedias could function. The point again is
that work is relative. Your kids see their lives as hard and tedious,
and can't imagine what it much have been like living back in the stone
age when there weren't any CD's, DVD's, computers, internet, etc....

Just a thought.

bboy_mn