I still appreciate it, but the “magic” is gone. It becomes an intellectual and physical challenge once you understand the mechanics behind slight of hand and other forms of stage magic.
Of course magic isn’t real. Magic occupies the border between reality and unreality, and is the mechanism by which effects cross it. Take money, for example. Not real, it’s just a social assignment of value. Magic is what makes money have real effects on the world.
Yeah, for sure. To me, the intellectual and physical challenge is the magic.
I guess to me the magic that’s left are the reactions I get from people who really love magic. There isn’t really anything else I can do that provokes such a happy reaction from people. Plus the genius behind some of these tricks is really amazing. Guys like David Blaine really are geniuses in their field. I found a PDF file on the torrent network that contained all of his popular tricks back in the mid 00’s, and the looks of absolute amazement I got at parties was priceless. One of my brother-in-laws accused me of being a warlock when I showed him some tricks the first time I met him. Haha!