Steve Jobs is a classic case in point. In Jobs’ 2011 biography, author Walter Isaacson highlighted a tragic mistake fueled by hubris. Jobs could have been very fortunate; a medical exam for something else incidentally picked up an early pancreatic carcinoma. Although pancreatic cancer is usually deadly, Jobs’ tumor was felt to be curable with immediate surgery. Yet this brilliant inventor, who revolutionized modern technological society, refused the recommended surgical procedure. He chose herbal treatment instead. By the time he noticed nine months later that he wasn’t getting better, it was too late. His tumor had spread, and the next six years became a painful game of catch-up, one that he ultimately failed.

Isaacson muses, with good insight, that Jobs’ tendency toward “magical thinking” was what did him in. In psychology, magical thinking is a term referring to a type of primitive rationalization used by children, before maturity brings about abstract thinking. This thinking can seem innocent and endearing in children; if you will it, it will be. There is a simple optimism in the notion that anything can happen if you want it to. It’s only the brick wall of logic that brings the fantasy ride to a bracing halt; adulthood teaches us that there are laws to the world around us that we, for better or worse, have to adapt to. There is no Santa Claus. The Earth isn’t flat. People die. Science becomes the lens through which the adult brain peers at life; and the view isn’t always pretty.

Yet even as adults, many of us still cling to the wishfulness of childhood wonder. In some cases, it can be a magnificent and inspiring force. Not unlike the mantra of the movie Field of Dreams—build it and they will come—the power of the human imagination can be transformative. Jobs was willing to think outside the box, literally and figuratively; he combined elements of intuitive playfulness with the usually dry complexity of computer science. He made adult-level toys for the masses, because he believed in his own dreams.