Sleight of Hand

I am home for the weekend, and it feels pretty good. However, I am reminded of how much and why I hate riding in Greyhound buses. But the problem is, the most convenient way for me to get back up to Edmonton will probably be by a Greyhound bus - unless someone was so kind to pick me up. For what I'm doing at home, I'm not quite sure. Actually, I'm lying; but I won't say why I am home yet, because you will find out soon enough. It's true what they say: wherever is home, the heart is. I seem to be a person that can get attached pretty easily, so you can catch onto where that is leading.

I re-learned something this week. When I was in elementary, there was a period where I was obsessed with magic. There was a point when those book order things came in, I demanded my parents to buy me the magic kit that they sold in that month's issue. The thing was though, that I failed to grasp most of the concepts of magic at the time due to my age, so it was hard for me to learn any decent tricks. So, I gave up for a few years; and then the passion for magic was reignited in High School. I have long fingers, but my hands aren't exactly big enough to be able to handle cards as well as I'd like to. So you can probably imagine that I wasn't very good with my tricks. But I continued to practice behind closed doors, and I think I've got a pretty good grasp on how to compromise for my skinny hands as well as a good insight on a lot of the magic world. Of course, there will be the odd trick that I just won't be able to do because of the sizing of the hand, but it's pretty good otherwise. I've been practicing my tricks for quite a few years now. When I get the chance, I'll bust out the odd trick to either kill some dead time, or just try and get a few 'wows'.

Anyways, why am I talking about such a random thing? When someone asks me what my definition of magic is, I usually say that it's two things: psychology and sleight of hand. Well, what the heck is sleight of hand? To put it into really basic terms, it's by using your hands to direct your eyes to seeing things that might not be what it really is. At the end of the day, and when it all comes down to it, I see magic as nothing more than pure entertainment. When I do a magic trick, there will never be any witchcraft or the sort involved. I am firmly against those things, so I wouldn't even dare come near any of that. The thing is, the definition of "magic" differs from people to people. A lot of the, more, traditional or, for the lack of a better phrase, old fashioned people, whenever they hear the word magic, and no matter the context, they will think that it's evil and should not be around it. Some people may not be so extreme in what they think about magic, but they still prefer not to be in vicinity where they, or their loved ones, may be influenced by it.

So by now, you're probably thinking, "what did you do this time?" Well, all I'll say is that I probably should've thought twice before I go around openly showing people that I can change the color of a deck of cards from blue to red, or change a Jack of Hearts into the Ace of Spades. Although I disagree with not allowing card tricks to be done to people, I will respect the wish of others, in that if they don't want to see any tricks, I won't do any.

Oops. I'll be more careful next time ;)

Umm, I should also probably say that this isn't directed to anyone specific. I've encountered a few of these situations, and thought I'd just share my opinion because I'm just taking it easy tonight.