If we believe researchers and scientists, we all have the mind of a monkey. This analogy, slightly humorous though it may be, is actually an interesting one.
Consider that we have around forty thousand separate thoughts each day, many of them on the same topic. As magicians, thoughts about magic are common and take a lot of space and time. So our monkey is a very special ‘magic monkey’.
You might imagine that each thought is a branch, and you, or at least the attention of your conscious mind, is indeed a monkey, swinging from thought-branch to thought-branch all day long.
What if I don’t have that newest secret, everyone else has?
Monkey Feeders
In magic we have quite a lot: The Penguin, Ellusionist, Vanishinginc, Dan & Dave, Magic Café forum, GENII forum, other forums, newsletters from dealers, video downloads, online lectures, magic club meetings, emails from magicians and club members, AGT, BGT (name it), Fool Us. The list could go on.
Not very important things for our real lives perhaps, but made important by our own constant attention to them. How exhausting it becomes to hunt the newest bit of information.
The list could be even longer for some.
All these things ‘feed’ the monkey and keep him busy all day. He’s racing around in our minds.
(to be continued …)