what you see is not always what you get

i think magic is pretty cool.


of all the magicians who are in the public eye these days, i really dig david blaine. maybe because he seems so ... unremarkable. what you see is what you get. my life is an open book.
and there, in the middle of the street or the restaurant or your front porch, he'll pull off the amazing.


he wrote a book once called Mysterious Stranger: A Book of Magic. besides being autobiographical and a backstage pass to some great performances in the magic industry, it happened to be something else too.
 
a cryptic treasure hunt.


i wonder if sometimes our lives aren't like that too. now some of us are naturally shy, private, introverted (yours truly, for example). we are tough to get to know - at least thoroughly speaking. so it would make sense that we don't disclose our darkest secrets, our sins, our fears and failures and latent hopes and dreams indiscriminantly.
but some of us are wear-your-heart-on-your-sleeve kind of people. i'll tell you as much about myself as you can handle. the open book.
still, there are secrets.


you're a human being, and you're complex. you'll manage your image so that it appears to different people the way that best serves your purposes or the needs of the context. and those needs might include self-preservation, affection, attention, domination, distance, congeniality.
 
but at the core of the human condition there is a need to be understood, appreciated, loved, accepted - even forgiven. God has designed us that way, and almost all of us can recognize that as natural. in fact, when someone demonstrates no need for or an aversion to being understood, appreciated, loved, accepted and forgiven, we usually consider that person a sociopath ... or worse, a psychopath.
so who are you letting into your life? who are you giving a fair shot at deciphering the code of your life? who are you actually doing the deciphering for? to have at least one person with whom you can be relationally naked with helps you anchor yourself in the universe. i think that one of the key searches in our lifetimes is to find - or maybe better put, develop - that relationship that allows you to be unabashedly real.


when you can connect with that person, now that's magic.

what you see is not always what you get