Magic, Belief, and the Art of the Elevator Pitch

I was doing a book sale/signing last weekend with a group of local authors I know. We were one table among a myriad other vendors selling their wares. I’m not really one for talking about myself but I did grow up with a few performers in the family and understand the necessity of hawking one’s wares. So I talked to people and did point out the books we had for sale. But then somebody asked me what my books were about and suddenly I sounded like Maimonides attempting to describe God. All I was able to say is what my books weren’t. Yes, my books involved magicians, but they weren’t the kind that waved their wand and turned people into animals. I mean, they’re stage magicians, but they don’t have supernatural powers. Well, they sort of do have supernatural powers but not the typical kind of powers. I mean they can see into the future or talk to the dead, sort of, but it’s not from saying hocus pocus and gazing into a crystal ball…well, not exactly.

And I could see in the eyes of my potential customers that the light had faded and they soon walked on towards other booths. I had failed to make a connection. And instead of getting to the root of why I had failed to make a connection, I closed the chapter in my mind and started thinking about something else. You see, when things become uncomfortable, when questions arise which cause us to question our reality, we humans often have a tendency to change the subject or look the other way. We become comfortable in the world we have fashioned for ourselves even if it is not helpful to us.

Fortunately, my fellow author, Tara Meissner (this isn’t a plug, but buy her book Stress Fracture) told me something like “you don’t have an elevator pitch. They were looking at your books and you couldn’t even tell them what they were about. Why would someone buy your book when you can’t even explain what it’s about?” At which point that trigger response in me wanted to reply something like “It’s art, baby, don’t even try to categorize it. Don’t label me, because labels are limits.” Fortunately before I could say anything stupid like that, she followed it up with something like “It comes off as kind of arrogant”.

Aw, cut to the quick. And I knew she was just being honest. More than that, she was right. She tried to beg off it a bit as though she thought I might be offended but I knew just what she was talking about and agreed with her a hundred percent. Of course, we all need others to point out the obvious from time to time, especially us authors or, dare I say it, artists. See, as an author, I see the picture as it exists in my mind, as it should be, rather than as I have actually put it down into words. A writer first has to conceive of an idea, and then put it into words. If you cannot put it into words so that others can share what you have conceived, then you are not a writer but a dreamer. Which is totally cool, too. The world needs more dreamers, they are beautiful people. It’s only bad when you are a dreamer who thinks he is a writer, then you are a delusional dreamer. So in order to be a writer you have to express the ideas you have given birth to. You have to awaken those same ideas in the minds of others that you yourself have experienced. And if you aren’t able to tell people why they should read your books then you are doing a poor job of it.

It’s just that I’m a writer, not an advertising agent: on that I am firm. For me it is the writing and not the sales that must always be my motivator. I hate the term “elevator pitch” because it suggests to me some sleazy self-important climber sucking up to a superior or a client in whatever manner is necessary. And that’s what I’ve spent a lifetime avoiding being. I have to place honesty above all other considerations.

Okay, but I should be able to explain what I do honestly, shouldn’t I? Below is one attempt to do so. It might sound a little pompous, or arrogant. It might sound grandiose. I guess I’ll have to risk it. Perhaps it is not merely misrepresenting myself but having people see me too clearly that I fear.

I write about real magic. I write about what is left after you get rid of all the illusions. And the world is full of illusions. We never really are able to cut our way through the illusions. But magic is the belief that there is something beyond the illusions, that in smashing through the simplistic answers we more closely approach the reality, though we may never see it fully. To disbelieve in magic is to believe that there is nothing more than illusions, that beyond them there is simply nothing. Ultimately, neither answer will have definitive proof. Ultimately it is a choice, the choice of limiting ourselves or giving ourselves up to an unseen and invisible something that turns mundane existence into a miracle. We create magic within our souls, by choosing to believe, by opening ourselves up to something beyond what we are presently aware of.

Perhaps it is a decision to believe in God. Or at least just believe, believe in something even if I cannot express in words what exactly it is that I believe in. Life after all is not about living the life that we can understand but the life we can briefly catch a glimpse of. It is being humble in order to grasp the vastness of the universe we exist in. And it is having faith in that universe. It is believing you are a part of that universe, and it and you have a common goal/destiny, potential for harmony. It is believing that the division between you and the outside world is an artificial distinction we draw because we have not yet pierced the veil of illusions to reach what lies beyond.

I guess I have not worked it down to an elevator pitch yet. In time I’m sure I can winnow that down to a couple of sentences in order to give people an idea of what it is I write. Until then I’m afraid I’ll be staring at the walls of the elevator anytime someone else enters.

Magic And Science

     Magic is a theme that has played a dominant role in all four of my novels. I’m not sure how the idea of magic has woven its way into my thinking but it has, and I continue to find new ways to interpret it. I’ve seen many of my favorite artists latch upon a single idea and go back to it again and again. A good idea, a unique paradigm, is worthy of being mined again and again.

     My main characters are magicians but my books aren’t so much about the performing of tricks on stage. Nor are they the kind of magicians that go to Hogwarts and turn people into animals. No, they are quite human people without any special powers. Except, perhaps, perception. They are able to see life in a way few people take the time to, are able to see beyond the accepted realities that have been built by a sort of group think. They walk paths off the beaten trail and so are able to see the things other people are too busy, too herded, to see. After all, being a magician is not a normal profession. It is perhaps something we think of doing when we’re young, but eventually we grow up and get real jobs.

     But there is something to the illusion, the sleight of hand. We want to know how the trick is done but we also want to believe that there’s something more than a trick involved. Sure, we know it’s not real, but it’s not really about reality, is it? There is something beyond the reality, or something that is real but not conforming to what we generally agree upon as “real”. What is truly magical, miraculous, is what takes place within us as we observe a trick being performed. That is where magic exists, within us, in our hearts and in our minds when we are able to observe things with un-jaded eyes. And that area where magic exists is an area quite foreign from science or objective observation. It has its own reality that can run concurrent to what we can quantify but exists slightly apart from it. It is a world of belief and faith just as it is a place that permits doubt and questioning of what the rest of the world accepts as solid fact. You see, when we believe, when we have faith, we are able to achieve many things that the outside world may say is impossible. And when we doubt what is accepted fact, we are able to overcome barriers that others never try to overcome. Indeed, many of us are never even aware that the barriers are there. I have noticed a growing idea that there is no such thing as free will. And for those who do not believe in free will it truly does not exist. You have to be able to see beyond the existing paradigms in order to overcome them.

     Hundreds of years ago religion was misused in order to restrict people’s reality. All of the advances of science would have then been considered impossible given the limits that were placed upon free thought. But scientists pushed bravely onwards and built an entirely new world beyond the imagining of anyone living a few centuries ago.

     But now ironically science itself is often used as a bludgeon to try to prevent us from seeing beyond the walls that have been constructed around us. Science has constructed rules and laws in the same fashion as religion once did. You see, no matter how enlightened we may believe ourselves to be, we cannot remove humans from the equation, their imperfections and unpredictability. Which is bad as far as science is concerned, but it’s where magic is able to flourish.

I Thank You And Pass On What You Have Given Me

     I share this not to dwell on the problems I have had in life, but as a way perhaps of helping others. When I look back it is to remember how far I’ve come and how it’s possible to rise above those things that can hold you back.

     Nor do I wish to use my own modest success in overcoming my own difficulties as a cudgel to beat those who may be in a state where they are in need of help or are not succeeding. I appreciate that everyone’s story is different. I write this in the hope that it might help others to find the answers they need to find, the support everyone needs at some point in their lives, the belief in themselves that allows them to be the people they want to be, need to be and deserve to be.

     Growing up was hard for me, at least my high school years. I could indulge in navel gazing and work through my history in order to explain exactly why that was, but it’s important really only to me. The point is I found myself in high school with no friends and failing or nearly failing every class I had. In short, I was a screw-up.

     Seeing as I was a screw up, there was no shortage of people who would ask “What’s wrong with you?” or “What’s your problem?” But that never helped me because I was already asking those questions of myself all the time. I had no critic harsher than myself. I didn’t need someone to tell me to toughen up. What I really needed was someone to tell me to loosen up. I needed someone to tell me that life wasn’t purgatory, that happiness was a viable goal and that if I screwed up, if I failed, I was allowed to forgive myself and try again. You see, I never really gave myself the opportunity to succeed. I demanded perfection of myself, and if I fell, I told myself it was because I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t strong enough. And demanding perfection meant I was never going to be good enough, because I was never going to be perfect.

     I don’t know what made me fall into that trap, I really don’t. But somehow I ended up repeating the same negative processes over and over. Whenever I met a new person I would automatically believe that they saw the absolute worst possible version of myself. If I seemed to make an initial good impression, it only heightened the discomfort I felt as I awaited the total collapse that I was sure to make.

     When someone is doing as poorly as I was in school, a visit to the guidance counselor is inevitable. I was shy to the degree that having to talk to anyone was painful enough, having to talk about myself was worse, and having to confront the facts of my inability to cope with my own life was almost unbearable.

     But I was fortunate. I had a counselor who was nice. Nice seems such a neutral word, it doesn’t get the respect it deserves. When you’re a fifteen year old screw up, nice can mean the world to you. And Mrs. Feiler was nice. Mrs. Feiler, I still remember how to spell her name. “It’s relief spelled backwards,” she once told me. Funny what you remember 34 years later.

     At any rate, I hated having to go in front of people and explaining why it was I was a screw-up because I myself didn’t know what my problem was. I could only tell people that I’d try harder next time and try to give the vibe that said, “Yeah, I hate me too.” That was the best I could do, self-hatred. I figured I was worthy of it.

     But see, Mrs. Feiler was a kind and caring person. She saw things in me that others didn’t or chose not to because the possibility that I might actually have potential would have required some real effort and commitment from them. She would see that I carried around books that weren’t school books. She saw I had interests that school and apparently no one else was addressing and we would talk about things that mattered to this kid that didn’t matter.

     And then, one day, in the lengthy process of trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me, she said these words: “You’ll be okay”. Just like that. God knows how she knew I’d be okay, or even if she really meant it, but she said it. And it stuck. It stuck somewhere deep down in me. Oh, it didn’t show itself right away, but it never left. Somebody believed in me. Somebody planted a seed of faith in me that grows until this day. And that’s all it took, just a few words from a single person.

     Thank you doesn’t cut it. And I don’t want to paint one individual as some great hero, but she was to me on this one day. I hope she can appreciate that she played such a role in this wonderful adventure that is life, that she did something that is considered by someone as profound and life-changing.

     But as I said, thank you is not enough. I want to go further than that. I want to pass on what she gave to me. I want to show her that her kindness and concern goes far beyond an individual act of kindness, that everything we do has echoes and repercussions far beyond the individual that started it. Not that such a thing can be accredited to any one person. For the part you played, Mrs. Feiler, is the link in an immense chain, of something larger and more beautiful than any of us can imagine yet can feel in our hearts once the light has been lit.

     So to all of you out there, I wish to share with you what was once shared with me. I believe in you. You are not a bad person, you are not a screw-up. I may not approve of some things you have done, but I don’t believe you are condemned to repeat the failures of your past. It won’t be easy, it wasn’t easy for me, but the journey is worth the effort. You are part of this whole human race thing and you have a part, a necessary part to play in it. Believe, achieve, and pass it on.

This Poem Is For YOU

I found this poem amidst the piles of papers I keep stashed about the house. I seem to remember writing an improved version of this but I can't find it. If I do, I'll share it. 

I believe in you

Yes, you.

I know who you are

Because I am you too.

I believe you can be what you desire to be

And that what you most desire is both noble and true.

I know this is real because I believe in me too.

We are all rays of the same sun

Tracing ourselves back to the only One.

Travel how we might, we can’t escape our source

Though shame and shyness and embarrassment

Seek to rob us of our innocence

Innocence cannot die while we yet live.

This is the big yes,

The answer with no reasons

For reasons need reason

And reason can only reflect, not be.

Whoever, wherever, you are

Please believe it’s true

Please believe in me,

That I believe in you.