on magic

what is magic?

as usual, i don't have a good answer to the puzzle. what i do have is the privilege of having met a lot of incredible people.

here is a compilation of puzzle pieces, each authored by a different person in my life.

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Change is exciting. Changing your background on your desktop, your phone, or your blog. Getting new books and choosing new subjects for another semester. Changing the way you think about things. Change feels good.

one key to magic i think is this novelty. when you move to a new place it's exciting. the first day of a job is always filled with unrealised possibilities. 

sometimes i think about moving to some remote place and living in a tiny town where i kill time every day until i die. i eat and drink at the same bar every day with the same friends, i come back to the same house, and sit at my computer watching youtube until i fall asleep. i sit on a rocking chair on my porch and watch tumbleweeds blow past. 

without change, how can i feel alive?

maybe that's why i moved to new york. maybe that's why i love watching oceans of people drift past me, each filled with unrealised possibilities.

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My friend asked me what was going on in my life, what my life revolved around. I couldn't really think of anything, so I said "uni, work". And then I realised how sad that was. Life always feels busy with uni and everything - but I guess it's ultimately which things we place our priorities on.

it's a shame because uni and work were both magical things once. the first day of uni, the excitement of picking your classes for your first semester, your first day at work, your first time being paid.

as you settle into routines, you become better, more proficient. you already know which classes you're doing next semester. you know the shortest route between lecture rooms. you know which $5 subway sub tastes the best. 

when i was younger everything was new and every day was filled with magic. my lifespan felt infinite and the possibilities were intoxicating. i remember trying to design a rpg game with my friend jason and we came up with some generic rpg where you gained experience to level up and cast magic spells. we even designed some micro-transactions. i thought it was the greatest thing in the world.

the older you get, the more routines you build up. the more efficient you become. the 1000th time you go to school or go to work it's just a part of the background, part of the picture frame.

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When I went to Hong Kong in 2014 with some friends, I remembered a distinct feeling of serenity standing in the Nan Liang Garden.  The sky, the trees, and the pagoda all brought me comfort, peace, and a gratitude for the world.  When I returned in 2016, here was my initial feeling: nothing. I might as well have been standing in the parking lot of Walmart.

magic is elusive. if there was a consistent way to find magic in your life, it wouldn't be magical. i've been writing this one same blog post for like 2 months because 9/10 times i open the post i feel nothing but apathy and give up.

You know that excited feeling, that spark when you look forwards to doing something? I feel like I've lost that feeling. 

sometimes your brain doesn't cooperate and you have no idea why and you wonder if you'll ever feel alive again.

i think i felt this the most during 2014. looking back on that year, i think taking on more and more responsibilities + starting to hyper-optimise my life made me very productive and also very unemotional and dead.

I think I am slowly losing my feelings. The more I am pressured to do work, the more I am responsible for, the more I become cold and rational. I suppose it is my way of coping, to hide myself away until I am little more than a perfect machine.

conversely, when you're in the right mental state sometimes even the most ordinary things can become very magical. simply living life can become very beautiful, if you're lucky.

When you're inspired you do more things and feel good about it. You wake up at 6:50am on Fridays and leap out of bed. You're motivated and have a purpose. 

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i remember my excitement as the countdown became hours instead of days. picking you up from the airport and finally seeing you made my heart feel like it was bursting. and you felt the same. what a feeling. the honeymoon period sure is crazy huh.

i think it's easy for the honeymoon period to be deceptive in its beauty. simply existing in someone else's presence can become a powerful drug. being in love can colour your life in a way few other things can.

like all drugs though, the magic fades slowly over time. gradually, so that you don't notice it slipping away. suddenly spending time together isn't enough anymore. fire needs air, and spending every moment with your partner can slowly transition from intoxicating to suffocating.

some couples try to change things up in hopes of reigniting the magic they once had. it could be moving to a new city, getting married and having kids, or even introducing more people into the relationship.

some couples find air in their own individuality. they step away and look to remember who they are outside the relationship. they immerse themselves in their own hobbies and make new friends. sometimes they change and come back into the relationship a totally different person.

some are more content with the status quo and settle into what feels comfortable and natural. familiarity and companionship, safety and loyalty can mean more than any magical experience can. sometimes that's enough to be satisfied. sometimes it's not enough.

you have the audacity to say that our love became stagnant, that there was nothing to talk about because we already knew everything about each other. and you decided to go find something new and exciting in her instead of investing in us.

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i wonder, does every experience have to be new to be magical? is it necessary to look for new experiences every day until we finally run out of countries to travel to and hobbies to learn?

i think not.

I honestly can’t remember the exact date but I remember I was at some ski resort and I remember going down for another run but something felt different and I felt my body loosen up and I felt like I was connected to my board. Without even thinking, I could feel the board on its own. Before making a turn I would normally have hesitation but I realized that I was already making my turns. I could feel the bumps and edges of the mountain that I would normally eat shit on but now was effortlessly gliding over them.

it's no wonder so many people love skiing and snowboarding.

To me, passion is an obsession where you almost forget to eat, you forget to sleep, or you lose yourself in it. It’s doing something a thousand times and even though it’s stressful and it drives you crazy, you can’t break away from it. It’s falling in love with the process and perfecting your craft. It’s obsessing over the nuances and meticulous details of every aspect of that craft.

some people get hooked on that feeling and never look back. i literally wake up each morning and look forward to making my coffee for the 2000th time. isn't that kinda ridiculous?

there's a lot of magic to be found in existing parts of life. sometimes we don't have to be looking for something new.

sometimes magic can be having a rare deep and meaningful conversation with your romantic partner of 20 years after weeks of taxes and chores.

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The first time I ran to the beach and saw the sun set, I thought: how was it possible for life could contain so much joy? The first time I attended an orchestral performance by myself, I felt tears come to my eyes from the sheer depth of the music. The first time I took photos of my friends on an ancient Fujifilm camera, I realized with a swelling in my chest that I was capturing a moment I never wanted to slip away.

i think it's easy to hyper-focus on the big things in life. achievements, weddings, big holidays and trips overseas. sometimes they can let you down. you visit japan for the 10th time and wonder why the streets of Tokyo don't inspire you in the same way.

i'm reminded that there is a bit of magic in the little everyday experiences.

sometimes i scroll back through the last few years of pictures on my phone. there's so many little pieces of magic that i've forgotten about but my phone hasn't.

there's the time i won $10 on a slot machine and thought it was the greatest moment of my life

there's the time i tried to invent mango puree with just a mango, a fork, and a saucepan

there's the time i sent a link of my cooking instagram account to my parents, and my dad replied "mum is a good cooker, which makes me a bad cooker"

each of these memories feels like a tiny gem.

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I can't remember when you explained to me how meeting new people is exciting, but I think I can understand it better now. This excitement from people and journeys is like the essence of living life. But I feel like a small amount of essence is enough for me to be content. I wonder if that's lucky or one day I'll look back and wish I lived life more.

i can be a very greedy person. sometimes i feel like i'm searching endlessly for the elusive small bites of magic, for the ever-changing feeling of aliveness. maybe i'm addicted to life.

this causes me to do a lot of questionable things, like setting my goal posts way too unrealistically high, saying "yes" way too easily to other people, and uprooting my whole life to move to america.

If you could do away with hunger entirely, would you do so, or continue to experience the upswings and downswings of satisfying a need that you could remove? 

when i first became a teaching assistant in 2014 -2015, i gave up my own coursework and all my free time to help my students. i stayed in the computer labs for countless extra hours, did nothing except sleep and work, replied to emails instantly, and generally made myself an angry person. i sacrificed myself for my students, then looked at the other teachers around me and asked "why aren't you sacrificing yourself too?" not something i'm proud of.

i've accumulated a lot of repetitive strain injuries over the years from pushing my body too hard. whether it's from chasing achievements in computer games, playing way too much volleyball, or writing letters to friends. i think part of me has always believed that if i'm not pushing myself hard enough i'm wasting my life away, not living it to the fullest.

for me that's okay, though. the only thing worse than getting a chronic injury again is never getting a chronic injury again - because there is nothing in life that i want enough.

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i think this will be my last post for a really long time. i've never been the kind of person who can force themself to write and when the magic disappears my words quickly follow suit.

there are many times in my life when i thought that i was done with writing. once in 2012, once in 2015, once in 2017, and then once again in 2019. every time i came back it was for a different reason. in 2017 it was because i was being crushed by the stress of a new job where i had no idea what i was doing. in 2019 it was because daniel asked me why i like people.

every time i return to add another step to my journey, it feels like i'm a totally different person to the last. it's very magical to revisit old parts of your life as someone new. kind of feels like when you hit level 99 in an role playing game and you go back to the start to bully the level 1 goblins.

there are so many unanswered questions in the future. when will the next blog post be written? why will i be writing? what kind of person will i be when i click 'new post' again?

writing feels like its own kind of special magic, don't you think?