In one way, it was just an image of an animal printed on a small piece of card.
But in another way, it was a gateway to a new world.
When I saw what was on that card, the rumble of the playground around me died down. I ceased to notice the cold autumn rain hitting the back of my neck. I was looking at something so wildly imaginative and beautiful that nothing else mattered.
The image was of a fiery beast, arcing its neck downwards to let out a furious, flaming roar. Surrounding the animal were flickering pieces of gold, deep layers of burning embers, and a moody shadow cast by its fearsome form.
I had never seen anything like it. Its impact on me was so real that I might as well have seen the thing stood in front of me. But the card was enough to transport me to somewhere bordering on real. I stared and stared at it. I even smelt the card, scratched it, smoothed it, and looked at it from different angles. I was mesmerised.
I was young when I saw it. I was full of that brilliant naivety that takes a young boy to the realm of insane risks and great rewards, at any given moment ready to start a grand adventure. This card spoke to that. It’s hard to say why. But what is clear is that I was one of millions captivated by the creature and its artistic depiction.
It was, of course, a shiny Charizard: one of the most valuable and rare Pokémon cards, still highly sought after 25 years since it was first printed.
But what is it about Pokémon cards that so captivated my young mind, and that continues to captivate young (and not-so-young) minds across the globe?
An answer to this question came to me from a surprising source…
Bird watching. Yes, bird-watching.
As a teenager, I once saw a man on the TV talking about a recent bird-watching excursion. He was very excited about what he had found, or was about to find, or whatever; I was thoroughly bored. But then, out of nowhere, a curious though popped into my head:
Bird-watching is like Pokémon for grown ups.
These old men on the TV were out to find beautiful creatures in the wild and capture the memory. They were mesmerised by rare beauty and were desperate to seek it out again and again.
I have thought about this on and off for 10 years. There must be something deep in the human psyche that makes children and adults search for rare beauty.
But what if the theme runs even deeper?
An explorer follows a treasure map to find buried gold. A marine biologist searches for rare species of fish in the depths of the Arctic Sea. A child searches for a chocolate egg in the long grass of the garden each spring. The search for hidden beauty permeates life on earth.
Of course, of course, I haven’t even mentioned romance! Think of the countless songs that reference that moment of finding a special someone hidden amongst hordes of not-so-special folks. “I saw your face in a crowded place.” // “You’re a novel in a sea of magazines.” // “In this needle-and-haystack life, I find miracles there in your eyes.” // “You were a diamond in the rough.”
But why does any of this matter?
Who cares if kids love shiny cards depicting fierce dragons? If old folks love searching for rare birds? If authors of love stories can’t avoid the phrase ‘one in a billion’?
This matters because it reveals something important and true about why we are alive.
We are created to find rare and hidden beauty…
We are created to be transformed by the experience of that beauty…
And the desire we have for beauty is an inner compass, planted in our hearts to guide us home.
And where is home?
Home is the place from which all beauty springs, where immense creatures sing eternal songs to the King of the cosmos, whose beauty knows no bounds.