Why are YOU a magician?
Have you ever stopped and asked yourself why you’re a magician? What is it about magic that makes you want to and gives you the confidence to perform? Why not be a juggler or a straight forward stand up comedian? (Okay I understand why you don’t want to be a juggler.) The reason you do it now might not be the same as the reason you started in the first place and might suprise you. I started because I needed a job when I was an out of work actor and even then it was selling magic not performing it. Back then I was driven by a need to make a living and although this outside force still exists it isn’t my driving force anymore. So is it the tricks that keep you doing it? Are you doing it for the sense of control and euphoria that you can feel when you have an audience right where you want them? Or maybe it is purely and simply financial. Let’s face it we make a good fee for sometimes very short bursts of actual work. Performing is like drug in that it is difficult to give it up once you’ve started. The money is even more addictive. But like like all addictions they can simply be a mask to hide behind and unless the entire process, from concept to execution is a source of pleasure then it’s the wrong drug for you.
The moment of victory is much too short to live for that and nothing else.
Matina Navaratalova
I think it’s important to know what is is we love about the art that made us do it for a living. This understanding will help shape the work we do and the direction that we pursue our passion. Toyota’s founder, Sakichi Toyoda used a system called the 5 why’s which helped to uncover the core of any problem that needed answering. It is what it says on the tin, asking the question why? 5 times. That’s probably 5 times more than most of us have questioned what we’re doing for a living and with our lives. Everybody needs a meaning for what they do because without it, (and I’ve said this before), it’s meaningless.
We owe it to ourselves and to our audiences to know what the hell we’re doing this job for because there’s always the possibility that we shouldn’t be. Not because we’re no good but because it isn’t what we find true joy doing. If that is the case, get out now and find something that will make you jump out of bed in the morning other than the cat. Our job is no different from anybody else’s, we can find ourselves meeting expectations instead of exceeding them because that’s the easy route. On the face of it we’re doing a good job but it’s never going to rock anybody’s world – yours or your audiences.
How many times have you seen or been a performer who is simply:
“..putting on that plastic smile and plowing through this shit one more time”
Bill Hicks.
This isn’t a meant to be a depressing post , on the contrary it’s about finding your intrinsic meaning and then pursuing it and nothing is more positive than that. There are countless books and blogs about finding your passion, and I’ve read most of them, but in the end it boils down to one thing – you.
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know.
And you are the one who’ll decide where you’ll go.
Oh the places you’ll go.”
Dr Seuss
