On Magic, Science, & Creativity...

Creativity is hard to capture. There’s a danger that writing an article on ‘How to be More Creative’ comes across as preachy and condescending. Instead, I want to explore some big holes that allow an escape route for the imagination.

In many cases, those holes can’t get plugged, but knowing they exist can help you be kinder to yourself and not feel guilty when the muse has seemingly left the building or doesn’t want to get out of bed. Let’s start with a biggie.

Blackpool

It was the night before my Blackpool Magic Convention lecture; I’d just got back to my hotel room when my wife phoned.

The tiny baby girl in our foster care was struggling to breathe, and they were being blue-lighted to the hospital in an ambulance. She was soon stabilized by doctors but had to stay in the ward for monitoring.

My wife and I decided that I could not immediately help as I was so far from home. We both agreed that the morning lecture should go ahead, and then I’d leave afterward.

That second night, I spent ‘sleeping’ on a chair in the hospital, reflecting on a crazy 24 hours. How I wished it was just that! The last 2+ years have been relentlessly horrible for my family and for a myriad of reasons.

Why do I tell you this? Partly, it’s a reminder that many of us have “on-stage” and private lives. Externally, through social media posts and performances, we can seem to be flourishing, but internally, we can be crumbling. Critiques and crappy comments can hurt. A kind word or gesture can have more power than we think.

The main reason is that these last few years have taught me that stress is a massive killer of creativity. The mental and emotional burden of surviving leaves little time and space for playful pursuits like making magic.

Play, that safe and open exploration of the world, is a crucial ingredient for wonder. It’s been tough to realize I just didn’t have the capacity to do what I wanted to do and to let opportunities slip through my fingers. 

Here are two things that have helped me:

1. Be kind to myself and not feel guilty. I understand that my lack of creativity is not lost; it’s just in hibernation, waiting for a better season.

2. Think short and simple. I might not be able to accomplish big projects, but I can take a little out time to do something easy without any pressure to succeed. Enjoy the ride, not the destination.

For me, that second step involved making basic animations, and for you, it could be toying with a deck of cards, performing to a new music track, going through one of the many abandoned boxes of tricks you bought in pursuit of a miracle, etc.  

Busyness Kills Business

Most of my work is spent performing within educational establishments like schools and universities. Therefore, my life is dictated by the academic calendar. The end of each term is my busiest and most lucrative period.

Every year, I stupidly overfill my diary with gigs to compensate for the long holidays, during which paid work is less forthcoming.

When the holidays hit, I’m exhausted and often fall ill from the physical endurance of working long hours. I enter these rest periods with grand ideas for all the projects I’m going to achieve, but I have neither the energy nor motivation to proceed.

Again, I need to remind myself to lower my expectations and not feel guilty for squandering opportunities.

Instead, it’s a period to recharge the physical batteries. I feel a little like a phone whose battery has just gotten so low that it has shut down. Even though it’s on charge, it takes quite some time before it’s ready to turn back on again.

There’s another effect at work as well. I believe creativity is inefficient. It takes lots of ideas, dead ends, and failures to produce something new. It’s like: 1+1=1.2.You need a large reservoir of ideas to draw from, and you need to regularly replenish it so it doesn’t run dry.

In the midst of busyness, I’m not intentionally topping up my tank.

I can’t create when the raw materials are lacking.

Therefore, my input needs to be significantly greater than my output. For me, that’s reading, watching documentaries, getting out in nature, spending time with family, and running. How do you top up your tank?

A Deep Resonance

In recent years, my tank has rarely been filled with magic, as I want my inspiration to come from elsewhere. I don’t just want to regurgitate the work of others without any thought. I want both my content and perspective to be unique.

It’s a trifle cheesy, but I often refer to myself as a “curator of wonder.” A curator’s role is to find, select, display, and comment on works of interest.

As both a magician and science communicator, the words of the poet Mary Oliver deeply resonate with me:

It’s why the Covid lockdowns hit me hard.

As worrying as the financial implications were, I missed the opportunity for creative expression that inhabiting a stage allowed. Not being able to ‘live a life’ was soul-crushing. A major savior was absorbing myself into crafting and filming elaborate optical illusion videos.

It has been a joy to delight (and often perplex) fellow magicians with the effects. When a project is going well, I can become obsessed with hyperfocus. I’m in a state of flow, and it is the most wonderful experience.

The tightrope walker Philipe Petit writes about “playing attention.”

Wow! I love that phrase. At my best, that’s what I do. There’s a childlike fascination and curiosity as I toy with a new idea. Parallel to that, my mind is racing for connections to other areas that share a property. If none is found, a mental note in my memory is made for the future when it may find its home. None of that can be done well under the pressures of stress and tiredness.

I believe that the best magicians and magic shows have play at their heart. It’s not about showing off. In the words of the wonderful clown Avner, the Eccentric “Be interested, not interesting”. What are you interested in? What principles deeply resonate with you? And have you included them in your performances? 

Comparison Killed The Cat 

It’s not about showing off, and yet the stage we play on in front of an audience can become a, if not THE, measure of success, whether that’s likes and follows on social media or the sustained decibels of applause at the end of a show.

Comparison killed the cat. 

There’s lots to say about external comparisons and jealousy between fellow magicians, but I want to focus here on the insidious internal comparisons we make between our work.

As much of my recent work is available online, I can put a number on how successful each piece has been. The video analytics tell me. I can even see the fraction of a second where a large part of my audience got bored and swiped away.

It can be a rollercoaster ride of viral hits and dead squibs. Chasing high numbers is addictively thrilling, but it chips away at my creativity, distorts my values, and evaporates my enjoyment. I found myself compelled to try and outdo myself each time. When work fell flat, it was demoralizing. Athletes can often be haunted by their “personal best,” as that becomes a measure of their future performance.

Often, circumstances are beyond our control; there’s an awful lot of luck in many success stories.

There seems to be a growing number of online creators who are tired of having their art directed by algorithms.

Kevin Parry, the editing wizard, has been rethinking his practice. Recently, on his Patreon group, he shared some thoughts about watching surfing at the Olympic games. You can have the world’s best surfers in the ocean, but they’re still at the mercy of the forces of nature. They use their best judgment to choose a sound wave to ride; they can position themselves well in the ocean, but often, that wave turns into a flop. They then swim back and try again. Beating themselves up over a flop is futile because they know more waves are on their way. 

Again, this is where play and knowing your deep resonances are essential.

I’m not creating for the hits or the applause; I’m letting my soul sing. And if anyone hears, that’s a bonus!

In the midst of tears and tiredness, I created something that ‘flopped’ – a video of a toy cow getting abducted by a UFO and floating magically up to the spaceship. I made the illusion because it was silly and fun. I made it for me.