AMORALMAN
Highlights
The escapee staggers back into the dark cave and describes what he’s seen, rambling about chains, and puppets, and a light in the sky. He wants to release the other prisoners, but they refuse. To them, he’s a lunatic who has blinded himself. Instead of letting him release them from their bindings, the prisoners threaten to kill him, fearing they, too, would go mad.
When the mind perceives a threat, adrenaline is released, increasing the heart rate and shuttling blood to the vital areas of the body. One of the first places that loses blood is the hand; as the blood leaves it takes its warmth with it. Cold hands were my body’s way of telling me to flee.
“There’s a lot of darkness in this world, kiddo… Be the light.”
I wasn’t crying because she was gay. I was mourning the loss of the father I’d never have. I fell asleep knowing I’d never fly.
Any pain I felt, or struggle I had, was measured against her own.
Shitty feeling.
Keeping that secret was a relentless and exhausting endeavor. I found it difficult to wake up most mornings.
Secrets are hard work.
The classes were smaller, filled with students who chose to the be there. And that choice made all the difference. They were nice people who were trying to better themselves. There were no cliques or social constructs. It was a place to do the work you needed to do so you could get on with the rest of your life.
We’ve all had someone attempt to hide something from us… And just as we’ve seen others hide something from us, we have felt the surge of fear and adrenaline when we scramble to hide what others aren’t meant to see. These are the toxic effects of secrecy. Secrets enter the system like a drug, causing aberrations in the body and clouds in the mind. The intoxication had caused me to unconsciously hurry when I was sneaking the balls under the cups. But speed is just one of many ways in which a secret can modify our behavior. It can cause us to: Stutter while delivering a plagiarized speech. Avoid eye contact when we see our crush. Or lash out when hiding significant pain.
Magicians are not obligated to adhere to the rituals and behaviors of the natural world. Because they exist in the realm of fantasy, their work is fiction. They are performers, and they do not hide the fact that they are performing. Other than ridicule, there are no negative consequences for seeming unnatural.
“You got the hands, kid. You should start focusing on the story.” “What do you mean? Like patter?” “Nah, it’s deeper than that. It can’t feel rehearsed, like a script. It’s gotta feel real. You gotta get it in your bones.” “How do I do that?” “There’s no easy answer, man. Like Miles said, ‘It takes a long time to sound like yourself.’”
“Magic is the only honest profession. A magician promises to deceive you and then he does.”
To know illusions is to know reality. How can we know what’s true if we can’t recognize what’s false?
The magician keeps the audience focused on the illusion. Deception is the point. What truth does deception for deception’s sake reveal? That we can be deceived? That’s not enough.
That was the only time others had assigned value to him and his immense talent. Even though his role was secretive and nefarious, he felt as though he was part of something special, which meant he was special.
The moment we knowingly conceal information from others we set a boundary between ourselves and those who do not possess the knowledge. This boundary provides us with a space of privacy and privilege. It can be used to shield us from pain and protect us from harm. Or it can act as a barrier, built to exclude and oppress those deemed unworthy of access.
[Mike] Tyson replied, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
The word “secret” comes from the Latin secretus, which means “to separate” or “set apart,” and that’s what I became: a boy set apart from the world.
You can learn a lot about yourself when you pretend to be someone else.