The Weight of a Card
You’re a magician by night, busy businessperson by day. You’re talking to a busy business colleague and she says that magic is cool.
“No it’s not, it’s a bunch of losers,” you correct her. This is your childhood insecurity talking.
“Why are you always putting down magicians?” she asks.
You flash back to a few weeks earlier, thinking about what’s wrong with magic:
This magician is on stage and he’s lecturing one thousand people on his clever new creation: it’s a card box that makes the cards get stuck in the box. If you don’t know the secret switch, the cards can’t be pulled out of the box. If you do, they slide out easily.
It’s like trick candles that won’t blow out.
Clever, right?
The fact that it was a trick box seemed obvious to everyone but the magician. Not a great trick, but that’s okay – magic is all about the presentation.
The presentation: this magician, trying to be an inspiration to us all, asked for a layperson to come on stage.
A very sweet woman joined him. She was in her 50’s, cropped short hair, glasses. She brought a warm mom-energy to the stage. We loved her immediately.
He showed her a few tricks and she did everything possible to make him succeed. Followed directions, didn’t try to steal his cards or be difficult. She reacted well. She was perfect.
Then came the box trick.
He asked her to pick a card. Then he tried to be profound.
He said, “think of your most traumatic memory…
“Something that you just can’t let go of.”
She was having so much fun a second ago. Now she looked miserable. Whatever that memory was, it hit her like a ton of bricks.
“Think of one word that represents this trauma.”
Clearly mortified in front of one thousand people, she wrote the word motorcycle on the card.
Motorcycle.
As in, someone she knew was killed or maimed in a motorcycle crash. A personal horror.
He put the motorcycle card into the pack, and the pack into the box.
He said, “while you hold onto this trauma, you can’t pull the cards out.”
He had her try to pull the stupid cards out of the stupid pack and she couldn’t because of the stupid trick box.
“But when you let go of that thought, you get your power back.”
And with a snap of his fingers, she pulled the cards and was able to take the deck out.
This poor woman did not look empowered. She looked miserable, squeezing out a forced smile.
The public humiliation kept going.
“Now think of the word, and you can’t pull out the cards. Now let go of the trauma and you can.”
We all wanted it to end.
He was so proud of himself.
Repeated over and over. Trauma. No trauma. Wax on, wax off.
We were all so relieved when the torture was over.
You’re at the airport and a few of the convention-goers are on the same flight as you. One magician is a sweet elderly man with an eye patch. He’s struggling with his carry-on bag coming off of the airplane, but too proud to ask for help. At the carousel, one of the magicians helps him get his bag off of the conveyor belt.
Another magician helps him to the cab. Turns out the elderly man is staying at a hotel two blocks away from the convention. The younger magician offers to share a cab, and directs it to the old man’s hotel. He refuses, but the younger guy insists. The young man helps him out of the car, and into the hotel.
The young guy pays for the cab, even though he has to lug his own heavy bag two blocks in the freezing cold.
You’re back in the office. Your colleague just asked, “why are you always putting down magicians?”
“You’re right, I shouldn’t,” you say.
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