I wish someone had told me don’t stop believing

“I wish someone had told me” is a series of posts that feed into our inquisitive nature at CN&CO. Each week we hear from someone in our network about something interesting or surprising that’s recently happened or occurred to them – or lessons they learnt. These blogs are a way to pay it forward and form part of CN&CO’s belief that the world can be a better place – and we all have a responsibility to make it so. This week’s post is by Allan.

 

If like me, you started to sing Journey’s song, thank you and enjoy that little earworm for the rest of your day. You’re welcome.

But my “Don’t stop believing” statement refers to growing up and the inevitable process of no longer believing in magic.

Last week I went and watched The Illusionists. I didn’t have too much knowledge about the performance. If anything, I was more under the impression that they were all mentalists and pictured some volunteer from the audience having their hand smashed down on polystyrene cups, one at a time, all the while there is one with a giant spike underneath. The audience gasping as the mentalist did it, wondering if the volunteer would have their hand impaled.

Instead, we were treated to a mixture of mentalist, funny man card trickster, sleight of hand guys with cards, origami swans and cutting the assistant in half trick.

As I write this, my cynicism is sprawling out on to my screen and this is what I want to talk about; Why did I stop believing in magic?! When was the turning point in my life that changed me from a carefree child that believed in not only magic but Santa, the Easter bunny and that there were monsters under the bed, to this person who is questioning everything I saw and occasionally coming up with a few answers of “ah, that’s how they did it, did you see she/he did that before… And it’s actually not that impressive.”

Even while watching them on the big screens to get a better view of the hands of the magicians/performers, I had a sense of total scepticism.

At this this point in the blog I would just like to say that by no means am I dissing the performances as terrible. In fact, they truly were great. I mean, they aren’t on Broadway for nothing. This blog is more of my personal insights and the inward reflection that has been sitting with me since the performance.

On the contrary, there were some really amazing moments. Even when the mentalist gave information about people in the audience who had written things down on a piece of paper before the show and placed it in a box that was suspended from the rafters. One could easily assume that the he has an ear-piece with someone on Facebook providing answers once they have the name. There were moments of sheer amazement when he would then identify the spouse and continue to reveal their favourite song. Now, I don’t know about you but I haven’t seen a section on Facebook where I can enter my favourite song. Please let me know if I am wrong, I’d like to update that.

Moments like these are great to see.

What was also great to see, were the youngsters in the audience and how they reacted. When the performers pulled a few of them up on the stage and showed them simple magic, the look of amazement on their faces was something to behold and I found myself longing for that innocence.

Why do we grow up? Why do we lose that innocence? Is it programmed into us to stop believing everything we are shown when we find out that Santa isn’t real?

I encourage myself and people around me to question why. Not just for the sake of asking why because they don’t want to do something, but rather to learn and develop themselves. But at the expense of not believing in anything? That seems like we’re losing out on something!

Is there a way to get it back? Highly unlikely, unless of course there is one of those movie moments where the shopping-mall Santa reveals himself to be real one or the magician conjures up something totally against the laws of physics.

So what can we as grownup non-believers do? Or more specifically me! Well shit, I don’t know.

I think I am young at heart and even childish at times. I am definitely carefree, and it takes a lot to rile me up. So maybe that’s just it. Maybe we can’t hold on to that innocence forever, but we can remain young at heart regardless of what we have experienced.

We could possibly help the next generation in our lives hold on to their innocence for just that little bit longer.

In 2012, while I was at Burning Man, I made mates with a guy from Salt Lake City in the USA. He is a former ranger in the US Army. Can I say former, or will he forever be a ranger?

While getting to know Mark, the way he explained what rangers are, is as follows:
“When you’re in trouble and you need help, you call 911. When the army is in trouble and they need help, they call the Rangers.”

So, you can only imagine, what Mark and his fellow rangers have seen in their lives and how this has impacted them.

The below Facebook comment by Mark was posted after I saw The Illusionists and it was purely by coincidence, but it captures my thoughts perfectly. So, hold on to what innocence you have left and if you feel yourself slipping further into a becoming Negative Nancy or sceptic, as Mark says “let it run wild from time to time”.