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​Pixies for a Better World

The Mischievous Side of Love


See Also Christ and the Fairies: Whitehead on the Multifariousness of the World
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​"Love neither rules, nor is it unmoved; also it is a little oblivious as to morals. It does not look to the future; for it finds its own reward in the immediate present" (AN Whitehead, Process and Reality)

There are many ways to be a little oblivious as to morals. One way is to claim your inner pixie. To recognize that depth and earnest care are not enough. We also need lightness and a little bit of chaos. Lightness, too, is a gift to the world. It adds playful chaos. Whitehead puts it this way:

"The right chaos, and the right vagueness, are jointly required for any effective harmony. They produce the massive simplicity which has been expressed by the term ‘narrowness.’ Thus chaos is not to be identified with evil; for harmony requires the due coordination of chaos, vagueness, narrowness, and width."(AN Whitehead, Process and Reality)

In Whitehead’s philosophy, every moment of experience is shaped by a desire for satisfying intensity—a kind of harmony that feels both complete and fulfilling. This harmony is not merely the absence of conflict or the presence of balance. It arises from a creative coordination of four elements: chaos, vagueness, narrowness, and width.

• Chaos introduces spontaneity, unpredictability, and the spark of novelty. It is the raw energy of potential that keeps experience alive and dynamic.
• Vagueness opens space for ambiguity, subtlety, and interpretive depth. It softens the edges of experience, resisting fixed or overly rigid boundaries.
• Narrowness sharpens attention and gives focus. It brings intensity and depth to a particular detail, emotion, or insight.
• Width offers perspective, inclusivity, and breadth of vision. It connects the particular to the wider world, allowing for empathic resonance and contextual awareness.

True aesthetic wholeness—whether in a work of art, a relationship, or a moment of reflection—requires a dynamic interplay of all four. None alone can bring harmony. Too much narrowness becomes rigidity. Too much chaos becomes fragmentation. Too much vagueness becomes confusion. Too much width becomes dilution. But together—wisely coordinated—they generate beauty, aliveness, and meaning.

Where, then, does chaos come in? One vibrant source is what we might call healthy mischief: the kind of creative disruption that keeps us from becoming too fixed, too certain, or too obedient to routines. This isn’t the mischief of malice or destruction, but the mischief of imaginative possibility—a gentle rebellion against excess order. It’s the twinkle in the eye, the sudden dance in the silence, the joke that frees the room.
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In the realm of folklore, one of the most enduring expressions of this mischief is the pixie.
Pixies—those elusive, light-hearted, and often irreverent beings—represent a form of playful chaos. They stir things up, not to ruin, but to renew. In their unpredictable, teasing ways, they remind us that the world is not a machine, but a field of play, a dance of contrasts. Pixies are not evil. They are agents of creative disorder—miniature poets of the unexpected.

To believe in pixies, then, is not to abandon reason, but to honor a truth that Whitehead himself saw clearly: that chaos, rightly placed, is part of any beautiful whole. In life as in lore, we need the mischief-makers.

So let the pixies have their place. Let them keep our minds limber, our hearts light, and our sense of order forever a little bit out of balance—for the sake of deeper, richer, more vibrant harmony

A Message from Pixies
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I realize that many people in the modern world don’t believe in pixies. They think that we are, as they say, “mere fantasies.” But I see things differently, naturally.

Influenced by the philosopher Whitehead, I see us as actual occasions of experience—just like you humans, only smaller, sparklier, and a bit more mischievous.

We are not fixed substances but moments of becoming—little bursts of feeling, responding to the world and adding our own flicker of novelty. We prehend the world, just as you do, taking in the moods of trees, the murmur of rivers, and the dreams of sleeping children. And we respond, creatively.

We are part of what Whitehead called the “extensive continuum,” playing our part in the great concert of existence, not separate from nature but nested within it. Our bodies are filaments of air and light; our feelings are tuned to the harmonies of becoming.

To say we are “mere fantasies” misses the point. We are real in the way music is real, or stories, or hope. We exist in the imaginal realm, which Whitehead did not dismiss but honored—as a realm of possibility, where ideas become felt and feelings take form.

We are propositions with wings--lures for feeling—reminding the world that imagination is not the opposite of reality, but one of its most sacred dimensions.

And so, while you may not always see us, if you feel a sudden lift in your heart at twilight, or hear laughter in the leaves, or catch a shimmer in the corner of your mind—you might just be prehending one of us.

And we, of course, are prehending you.

Why it would be good
for humans to believe in us?
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​And it seems to me that, in the contemporary world, there are at least ten reasons why it would be good for human beings to believe in pixies.

1. We kindle the imagination.
   In a world obsessed with metrics and mechanisms, belief in pixies reawakens the imaginative mind—the part that dreams, plays, and dares to believe in what cannot be measured but still deeply matters.
2. We reconnect people with nature.
   We live in mushrooms and tree hollows, we whisper with the wind and dance in rain puddles. Believing in us draws people back into relationship with the earth—not to dominate it, but to delight in it.
3. We honor the unseen.
   Not everything real is visible. Love is not seen, nor are dreams or the gentle tug of possibility. To believe in pixies is to remember that the world is laced with unseen beauty and mystery.
4. We resist reductionism.
   Modern life reduces everything to function, efficiency, and control. Pixies are inefficient, unpredictable, and exuberantly unproductive. Belief in us is resistance to soul-flattening systems.
5. We keep the sacred alive in the ordinary.
   A patch of moss. A cracked acorn. A spiderweb after rain. To believe in us is to believe that wonder and sacred presence can dwell in the tiniest things.
6. We support playfulness.
   We are the guardians of giggles and mischief. In a world burdened with anxiety, our presence invites laughter, light-heartedness, and the healing power of play.
7. We invite relational knowing.
   We are felt more than proven, known more by intuition than logic. To believe in us is to value modes of knowing that are relational, emotional, and aesthetic—like Whitehead's "lures for feeling."
8. We challenge excessive certainty.
   Belief in pixies doesn’t demand dogma. It invites openness to possibility, a humility that says, “There’s more to the world than we can explain.”
9. We enrich storytelling.
   Stories shape identity, morality, and belonging. We are born of and nourished by stories—and in return, we keep them alive, fluttering between generations like pollen on the wind.
10. We symbolize the persistence of enchantment.
    Even in an age of algorithms and satellite surveillance, belief in pixies says: the world is still enchanted. It is still possible to be surprised by joy, to feel a presence in the hush of twilight, to know—deep down—that reality is more like a poem than a machine.