10,000 hours. That is a straight 417 days of life on this planet. A skill great enough to be focused on that long must be extremely valuable and worthy. So what would I do, learn Mandarin Chinese, play the drums, hack a computer? No, I would like to learn to be an illusionist. A person who has the power and wit to deceive the eye and perform amazing tricks that set the mind on edge. Ever since I was a child the very idea of magic has fascinated me greatly, being able to do just an inkling would be a childish dream come true. Illusionists have the ability to make things disappear, especially themselves, pull off amazing escape attempts, and wow crowds around the world with so called "magic."
Magicians are sought after in Vegas, Boston, New Orleans as a pleaser to the people who want to think there is something more out there than just a trick of the eye, even though that is what illusion is. I would be able to pull off any trick and see subtle things that a person does to describe their whole life story to myself and others. Illusion is beyond making things disappear but a special skill the mot of the population would never put the time or effort into learning. Why learn to do a simple card trick when I have the possibility to make a person disappear? Ever since I saw the great Chris Angel, a world known illusionist, that dream of magic was rekindled. To have the ability to amaze people but be smoke through there fingers is an interesting way to look upon life. Illusion is the essence of magic humanized.
Amanda, I love seeing extraordinary and unbelievable feats being performed. I think having mastery in this field would be astonishing. Having some prior knowledge of illusionists, I know that they can "wow crowds", like you said, by doing these incredible and even mind-boggling magic tricks. I also enjoy Chris Angel's stunts and performances. I believe that your statement of "Illusion is the essence of magic humanized" is completely accurate.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Troy that some magic tricks are "incredible and even mind-boggling", they never cease to amaze me. I mentioned on Christina's post the show "Brain Games" and I think you would find it to be interesting. It tells us about all the ways our mind tricks us everyday. It also explains how some "magic tricks" are simply our brain missing minute details or tricking us into thinking we saw something else. This show really fascinates me and I think you might be able to learn some tricks from it.
ReplyDeleteIllusions amaze me and always keep me interested. I always try to figure out how the magicians do it but I'm so mesmerized by the trick that I forget to look for clues as to how they do it. I believe 10,000 hours towards perfecting the ability to be an illusionist would be entirely entertaining as well as useful.
ReplyDeleteI also think that magic is really interesting and learning how to trick the eye with illusions is a really great skill to prefect. After seeing the new movie, "Now You See Me" it made me realize how big illusional tricks can become. The "magic" in that movie absolutely blew my mind. Someone in the movie said "the more you think you see[in the illusion], the less you actually see". I thought this was true because it applied to me while I was watching the movie. The more I thought I saw in the movie, the less i actually saw.
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