Be a Mage, It’s Totally Wizard
Yep, magic is real and anyone can understand how it works
By MARTIN REZNY (a revamped essay from my ancient secret blog)
If somebody asked me, who or what I am or wish to be, I wouldn’t say I’m an artist, or a scientist, or philosopher, not even author, believer, speaker, writer, thinker, teacher, visionary, expert, pundit, none of those labels. Without a moment’s hesitation, I’d say that I am, for serious, only this:
A mage.
It’s entirely possible that nobody at all cares about what magic really is except me, but it would be a pretty stupid way of being special. The general contemporary idea of magic is that magic equals supernatural nonsense rooted in wishful thinking, devoid of logic or any empirical basis. The trouble with this notion, apart from it being an analytically useless and clearly biased straw man, is that magic is the most important discipline to master for anybody. And it isn’t even difficult to understand. At all.
It’s right out there in the open — magic is both the science and the art of making wishes come true, or in other words, of affecting the world at will.
Put quite simply, in the light of this definition, science is a school of magic, art is a school of magic, philosophy is a school of magic, as are all their forms and subcategories. The magic was not only the first way of thinking, it never disappeared and it shall not disappear as long as there will be sentient creatures wishing for things to happen. Or not happen. Or transform. Or be left as they are. Or anything else a mind can wish for.
Magic includes logic, methods, experience, the whole package. You can assume that simply wanting something is enough, and see how well that works out for you, or maybe you wish to be able to achieve results in a reliable way and choose magia naturalis. Or you prefer taking what you want and making things come true by force. It’s up to you, all perspectives on life have their benefits and drawbacks. Science only makes its own very clearly defined.
The rules of magic are simple — know yourself and be yourself, know what you want and do what you want. That’s the primal magic that can do no wrong. By which I mean truly wrong, universally wrong — you cannot wrong the universe for being who you are, if it is an entity that cares about you/made you/is you. And living the life your way makes sense even for a secular skeptical atheist. Only to deprive yourself and the world of YOU is a universal crime against life and the whole of existence. Most of all you.
At this point the notion of magic thus presented may be subject to ridicule as some pseudo-eastern popular-psychology self-empowering new age crap, but only if you assume nobody can fail. Everyone has magical potential, but an astonishing amount of people fail to tap it, people of all walks of life and frames of mind. Some have unleashed tremendous power that is now consuming them and destroying all in their path, while others aimlessly waste their lives thinking there’s nothing they can do to affect anything.
One of the greatest spells of this age is the spell of disenchantment of everyday reality. We can fly, even into outer space, explode celestial bodies, control our instruments remotely, communicate over vast distances, create virtual worlds of our design, but no, there’s no magic in it. It’s just science of reality. What the scientists forget is that all of those accomplishments started as mere wishes, crazy notions, fiction and fantasy, flights of fancy. The fact is that we’re so good at magic today that we have already bested most of the fabled wizards from the legends of our past. Think about that for a second.
Science without magic is when you forget why you’re doing the science. An error that can wipe out a civilization. It’s when you reduce magic to healing hit points or to only the obviously ridiculous superstitions, when you declare all magic an escape from reality and a delusion.
Truth be told, yes, some magic is lame. Magic can be done wrong — playing, say, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, while it certainly is an amusing exercise of imagination, is by itself one of the farthest things from real magic. When you prefer to invent a fictional character you identify with rather than living your own life, you’re doing magic very, very wrong.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t be playing games — you must, if that’s what fulfills you. But if you specifically desire to be a mage then science or art are much better options than AD&D. You want to throw lightning? Read about Tesla. You want to be immortal? Research medical nanotechnology or genetics. You want to be a god? Programming can make you a veritable creator of worlds. And if you wish to master primal magic itself, you can start by studying as many philosophies of life as you can find — all are just as true as they are arbitrary, and each says something about the nature of existence.
Find out all there is to want in life and why, how do people make any of that come true, what leads to success and what to failure, what do success and failure even mean from all the seemingly conflicting points of view. Draw a picture of the whole of existence and then find your place in it, which should put you into proper perspective. Not necessarily flattering, but there’s nothing more realistic than transcendental holism.
In simple terms, get real by looking at the big picture and getting over yourself. Without losing yourself. Be aware and humble and honest. Unless you wish to become an evil warlock, but I won’t help you with that.
Or you can decide that magic is unrealistic nonsense and world is ordinary, thus magically making it so by casting a counterspell, or taking the blue pill.
It’s up to you.