Month: April 2022

OUT OF THIS WORLD

“But first… I want to talk about you. Somehow, each of you ended up here tonight. And I bet, if you thought about it, you could figure out exactly how it is you came to be here. Maybe a suggestion from a friend or family member pushed you to investigate. Or a strategically placed advertisement caught your eye. Whatever your route into that seat of yours, you’re most likely aware of how you made that decision.”

“What’s more interesting to me is when we make decisions with none of that obvious information. We tend to play this off as ‘random gut instinct,’ but I’m convinced there’s much more to it than randomness.”

EVAN takes out a deck of cards and sets up two wine glasses on a table.

You might know how you got here, but I’m fascinated by why you ended up here. I have a theory that it’s less random than it might appear. So let’s put it to the test.”

“I’m going to ask you to make a decision without any information to back it up. A… random choice, if you will.

Performer mixes the cards and shows the faces mixed up. He removes some single cards, then small packets of cards in time with the next lines and questions to the audience.

“If I asked you to guess if this were a red card or a black card, what would you say?”

Response.

“Exactly. What about this one?

Response.

“Absolutely incorrect. When we focus on where there’s no information, the result is a 50/50 split. Even odds. You couldn’t possibly know what the card is. “

“But sometimes we don’t have to understand the how if we understand the why. We are constantly absorbing information – more information than we could ever process consciously. So instead of focusing on the thing you don’t know, when I ask you what color the cards are, just focus on me.”

“Would these be red or black?”

“And these?”

EVAN continues until all the cards are split between the red and black glasses. The lines he says while pulling out packets of cards might be prompts of things we can’t possibly know. Or even better, illogical questions like “If you were making dinner for an old friend on a Thursday, what star sign would that make me?” This could be done as a way of distracting the conscious brain even further. Perhaps the questions get more illogical as we go.

“And this is exactly why you are all here. If you were truly a random group of people spouting off random guesses, then the result would be understandably random. But we find ourselves in a unique situation that proves you all must be connected and aware of something even more than you realize. A situation that proves we can accomplish something incredible without understanding the intricacies of how it’s possible.”

EVAN turns around the separated cards and the red cards are all in the red glass and the black cards are all in the black glass.

[I may want to bring up how it doesn’t matter if they know what the cards are, because I know what the cards are.]

“And if we trust that this particular group is meaningful. And here for some interesting reason; that begs the question ‘What am I doing here’?” [Segue to 10e: NO Poker]

RING, WATCH, WALLET

[Transition to fit inside the Intro section. Keep this Quick as an early piece within a narrative]

In fact, I remember the specific moment I became a magician. It was wildly anticlimactic. It’s the spring of 2011, I’m in my college graduation robes, walking across a small stage to receive a Bachelors degree in interdisciplinary Hispanic Literature and Culture.

As they’re reading through the handful of names, time slows down (take off watch). for the last 17 years of my life, I had been the same thing. A student. A student with a wide variety of interests, but a student.

And I thought back through the years about how that title had given me permission to learn things just for the hell of it. I love being a student and I love learning. But now I didn’t know how I would be spending my time.

My friends had received these incredible job offers from places all over the world. They knew where they’d be spending their time, and what they’d be doing to earn money, and all I had was a big question mark out in front of me. I was looking for some sort of guide from a job about who I was going to be moving into the future.

Throughout this, the performer takes out his watch, money, and license, puts them into an envelope.

As I took the diploma, my student career ended. Seventeen years of learning came to an abrupt halt and suddenly I was… I guess… a full time magician? It’s not quite as exciting receiving a job offer when your boss is you.

I finished crossing the stage and nothing felt any different. But the weight of the future became immediately apparent. There was no money coming my way. There were no guidelines or instructions for how to spend my time. And no sense of identity – however misplaced – coming from what I was doing with my life.

He drops the items into an envelope. Pause, and then rips it open, showing that they’ve all vanished.

And thus begins a lifetime of reprioritization. While it’s true I sort of fell backward into the decision, so I can’t take all the credit, I realized that rather than letting time and money define who I was, I would start with me.

I would spend my time figuring out who I already was, and then cross my fingers that some semblance of money would come my way if I was thoughtful about spending whatever time I already had.

He reveals that the license and money are back in his wallet. And on the final line, he reveals the watch back on his wrist (or in his pocket if using pocket watch).