A Passion For Magic

Wow, has it really been 9 months? In this entry I’ll go over my thoughts on magic and where I am with my magic.

My passion for magic is equal to or greater than my passion for software. For the geeks, the following conditional is always true:

adnan.getMagic().passionLevel() >= adnan.getSoftware().passionLevel()

Please talk to me if you’d like the full source code… anyway.

Why greater?

Magic is greater because it allows me to connect to people at a completely different level. It allows me to reconnect with people I already know, but also allows me to immediately connect to people I don’t know, those that are strangers.
A couple of months ago while I was still taking the TTC (Toronto’s Transit System), on the RT I was doing “my thing” with my cards. Some card flourishes and some effects. There was an elderly lady who was sitting across me, and I noticed from the corner of my eye that the card flourishes had caught her attention. I started doing a magical effect, and when I was done I noticed that she was uncontrolably smiling, and looking to the person on her left. I never touched her, didn’t say a word, didn’t even make eye contact, yet the magic was able to bring out some type of emotion in her. That’s powerful. That is the beauty of magic. And let’s not forget that group of 15 kids (about 11-12 years old) who were chanting “One more time” as their fists made circles in the air. They wanted me to do one more magical effect before I left the subway car.

I’m 23 years old, I don’t feel as if I’ve done anything in my life worth anything. Magic somewhat fills that void.

Is magic real? Do you believe in magic?

Is magic real? It depends on how you define magic, and how you define real.

If you define real magic as a human being having supernatural powers which allow her to control things beyond her natural control, then no. That magic is not real. If I could do that real magic, then no children in Africa would starve. Hell, no one here in Toronto would starve.

But that’s not how I define magic. So I do believe magic is real. The look of wonder on people’s faces is real, the hint of astonishment in their eyes is real, their gasps are real, the bursts of emotion are real, the reactions are real. The magic is real. The magic I do becomes real.

My magic

When I first started magic, I couldn’t wait to get out and show people. Now I’m exactly the opposite. Even when someone asks to see something, I refuse.

There is a difference in doing tricks and performing magic. I want to perform magic, but I know that for some, in their mind, I will always be doing tricks. I would rather touch a heart than trick a mind. If you think that’s not possible, you’re wrong. If someone feels tricked because of something I did, then I’ve failed as a magician. Unless of course, that someone will always see anything I do as a trick.

I want my magic to have more meaning. Unfortunately the image I’ve setup for myself doesn’t really lend itself to easily perform meaningful magic. Not every effect I perform will have meaning, some will just be eye-candy. I need to pick and choose when I slip in a meaningful effect, and pick and choose those who I do it for.

I stopped doing magic for that reason, I wanted it to mean more, only because it means so much to me. It irritates me to no end when someone makes a joke about it, belittles it, or even tries to “figure it out”. The last thing I think about is “how it’s done”, it’s not about that, it’s about the beauty of what you see. At least for me it is.

Even if people don’t draw any meaning from my magic, at the least I want them walking away thinking that they just saw something beautiful, not just something “cool”, but something beautiful.

The best compliments I’ve gotten from my magic are not “wow, how did you do that?” or “you’re very clever” or anything along those lines. The best compliment I’ve gotten is, “You’re gifted” or “You have a gift”. Wow, what a wonderful thing to say, I thank those who’ve said that, and those that think that. The other best compliment I’ve gotten is, “What’s your name again?”, often said by strangers as I’m walking away. They may forget the next day, or even in the next hour, but for that moment, they need to know.

Performing Magic

Something I’ve been thinking about for a while now is actually using my magic for some sort of good. This is for when I snap out of my lack of magic, and back into the “magic zone”. I want to start volunteering at hospitals, old age homes and other such places where I can do magic, maybe even schools, libraries or some such. I can’t just walk in and start doing random “tricks”, I would have to sit down, think, and prepare a show. I’ll be doing that once I get time off everything else, and I’m not sure how long that will take. But that’s in the grand plan.