The Art of Manliness - #454： A Magician's Search for Wonder in the Modern World

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast now magicians

00:00:19.080 usually become magicians because they experience a sense of wonder seeing a cool trick as a kid

00:00:23.720 they want to recreate that off for audience members on a regular basis but what happens

00:00:27.660 when a professional magician stops feeling the magic of magic that happened to my guest today

00:00:32.140 his name is nate staniforth and today on the show nate shares how he got into magic and became a

00:00:36.100 professional magician only to become disillusioned with his career nate then talks about how he

00:00:39.960 embarked on a search to rediscover the magic of magic which took him to the slums of india where

00:00:44.320 he encountered a 3 000 year old clan of fire eating street performers and rekindled his sense of wonder

00:00:50.060 if you're feeling burnt out from your work or disenchanted with life this episode is going to

00:00:54.040 have some insights for you after the show's over check out the show notes at aom.is

00:00:58.320 slash real magic and nate joins me now via clearcast.io

00:01:03.580 nate staniforth welcome to the show thank you very much for having me on so you got a book out here is

00:01:21.880 real magic a magician's search for wonder in the modern world i love this story because i'm a guy

00:01:28.040 i'm a romantic at heart like i love the you know the idea of wonder and awe but also i live in the

00:01:35.160 21st century and so it's easy to be cynical and jaded and you're like does wonder exist but you're

00:01:41.400 also looking for it at the same time so this is your search like you're a magician you're you're a guy

00:01:45.300 who spends his career inducing wonder in people but you had this moment where you lost the wonder

00:01:51.020 and you went looking for it again before we get there let's talk about how you became a magician

00:01:55.480 because i think this is interesting how did you get into magic because every kid goes through a

00:01:59.260 magic phase i did but for some reason you you had your magic phase you decided i'm going to do this

00:02:04.820 for the rest of my life how did that happen yeah so just just to touch on something you said there

00:02:09.520 you know long before i knew anything about magic tricks i i loved the experience of being amazed and and

00:02:16.920 of of feeling that you know that sense of wonder or awe or or and and i feel like as a as a child

00:02:23.020 that comes relatively easy you know when you're young it's easy to be amazed and you notice that

00:02:28.900 as you get older and older it becomes harder to find and so so as a kid like i remember one night

00:02:34.140 when i was young my parents took me out to see a meteor shower and i i it was the first time i'd seen

00:02:39.680 the milky way you know because in the city the the city light obscures um the sky so all you can see is a

00:02:46.380 you know a few stars but when you go out in the country it's just it's staggering if you haven't

00:02:50.700 seen the milky way before it just knocks you down and and i remember loving that experience so much

00:02:57.340 feeling like that was real magic and then you know a few years later when i discovered magic tricks

00:03:02.740 the the connection that that i made in my mind was that the experience that you're sharing with an

00:03:07.960 audience with a good piece of magic is the same thing as you're getting from the night sky or a

00:03:12.880 sunrise or a sunset and so you know from the beginning that's that was my interest in magic

00:03:18.080 using using the the craft of the magician to share that experience of wonder with people

00:03:24.780 and how did you discover magic did you like you were one of those kids who watched david copperfield

00:03:28.920 on tv and you're like i'm gonna walk through the great wall of china like that guy what happened

00:03:32.860 yeah that that came later for me it was an accident i ended up uh reading the lord of the rings

00:03:39.000 you know those movies came out when i was a little bit older but when i was young it was just the

00:03:42.900 books and and i wanted to be able to cast spells the way that gandalf the wizard did in the book

00:03:49.180 and so i ended up you know going to the library looking for a book of actual magic that i could do for

00:03:55.680 people on the playground and it turns out that's not how it works but but i learned how to make a

00:04:00.200 coin disappear and and that was pretty good no i remember like thinking like the awe you know when i

00:04:06.220 went through my magic phase i went you know checked out all the books in the library about magic tricks

00:04:10.380 and i remember when i learned how to do the french drop is that what it's called sure with the coin

00:04:14.380 we make a coin disappear i looked in the mirror and like the first time i did it and it looked like it

00:04:18.580 disappeared like i blew my mind yeah the the thing you learn as a magician like the the astonishing thing

00:04:25.160 from the magician side of of the performance is how little it takes to take a grown educated adult

00:04:33.740 and make them believe in magic for a moment you know i remember i my first piece of magic was very

00:04:39.120 similar it was a coin vanish and i did it for for the children at school just at recess we were playing

00:04:44.280 football and then i decided to make this coin disappear and and you know the kids saw it and

00:04:49.220 they didn't know i was a magician they didn't know that was they were seeing a trick so they just saw

00:04:52.560 this coin disappear and they started they sort of started like screaming and jumping and running around

00:04:57.220 so the teacher on duty at the playground i was terrified of this woman she stormed over and demanded that i 1.00

00:05:03.400 show her whatever i showed the kids to make them you know scream and run away so i made the coin

00:05:08.060 disappear for her as well and and this was not a lady that you ever messed around with she was 1.00

00:05:14.440 terrifying and and i remember my hands were shaking when i did this trick for her but when i opened my

00:05:20.940 hand and showed her the coin was gone and i looked up it was like the transformation was total

00:05:27.740 she she was no longer this you know this authoritarian dictatorial teacher uh presence on the playground it 1.00

00:05:36.120 was like she was a little kid again and and that far more than the secret to the trick blew me away you

00:05:43.500 know that that you could use anything and and take someone through that transformation that that felt

00:05:50.000 incredible to me it's like what do you think what do you think is going on there why

00:05:53.820 why do we feel wonder like is it just like the mystery that we don't know is it i mean what do

00:06:01.380 you think is going on there yeah i mean i think it's i think it's a lot of things going on but but i

00:06:05.320 think especially for adults you know and and and i say this as an observation of my own experience as

00:06:11.880 much as you know seeing the people around me but i know that in my life i'm very good at making

00:06:18.100 things ordinary you know humans are really good at getting used to things and and when i think about

00:06:25.240 my favorite moments it it is it's those moments that have that have pulled me out of that sense of

00:06:32.480 the ordinary and and magic is so good at doing that because it takes something that you think you know and

00:06:38.140 turns it on its head right away it's almost like skydiving you know i think that i don't know if

00:06:41.760 you've been skydiving before but but it is a total violation of everything you think you know about

00:06:47.600 how you should behave you know because they open the airplane door and you jump out and it's just

00:06:52.240 that that is such a you don't do that that you have to be crazy to do that but but when you make that

00:06:58.120 jump there's this sense of freedom and release and and that's how good magic feels as well what's the

00:07:04.720 career path like to becoming a professional magician because that's something i have no like i mean if i

00:07:09.600 were like my kids said i want to become a magician i would i would have no clue to tell them like well

00:07:15.300 here's your next step so what does that look like yeah well and you know i grew up in iowa um and and

00:07:21.400 no one from iowa grows up to become a professional magician you know i think maybe if you grew up in

00:07:26.300 new york or las vegas or los angeles where there are other professional magicians you could you could

00:07:31.940 see someone else and try to copy their career path but but for me that that just wasn't the case

00:07:37.160 so i think you know i think i i my in my experience i just had to make it up as i went

00:07:42.200 and you know in in my town i grew up in ames iowa and there was this there was this athlete he was in

00:07:50.180 middle school when i was a kid and then he went to high school and he was a phenomenal basketball

00:07:53.920 player and you know the whole town would go out to watch him play and then he got signed on to the

00:08:00.180 local college team and then he made it to the nba and then he was he's the the head coach of the

00:08:05.000 bulls now fred hoiberg but but growing up and seeing this guy rise from a small town in iowa to

00:08:12.340 you know national superstardom that was it was an incredible thing to see because it made me realize

00:08:17.640 that even as a young magician like it's it it's okay to have an unusual job it's okay to do something

00:08:24.340 that not everyone else is doing and i thought if he could make it to the nba maybe i could make it as a

00:08:29.460 magician so i just started doing shows everywhere i did them for birthday parties and cub scout

00:08:34.760 banquets and you know the advantage i had is that i was the only act in town uh if you wanted to

00:08:40.560 hire a magician for your children's birthday party i i was even at age 11 i was the only option

00:08:45.660 and so you know i just i got in a great deal of experience even by the time i finished high school

00:08:52.560 that that allowed me to make the the jump to becoming a professional i think a little

00:08:56.720 a little more intuitive it didn't seem like as big of a jump because i'd already had so much

00:09:02.100 flight time did you go to college i did yeah but i i went because i got an acting scholarship and i

00:09:08.280 thought maybe i could learn something about becoming a great magician by studying stagecraft

00:09:13.880 and dramatics but in the end the best way to learn how to do magic for people is just to do magic for

00:09:19.840 people do magic for people i mean what i mean i imagine it's just you're on the road a lot right it's

00:09:24.840 just like constantly touring correct yeah it it is you know i think i had this vision of

00:09:31.880 having there be some point where you make it where you feel like you've arrived and and you know

00:09:38.120 finally you're on tour and and that lasted for about a week and after that i was just faced with the

00:09:45.080 relentless reality of traveling you know 100 days a year 150 days a year 200 days a year and uh

00:09:52.840 and and you know there's a very small window of my day where i do the show and the rest of my day

00:10:00.140 was just dedicated to getting from one place to another one place so it's a grind i mean and also

00:10:05.080 i mean here's another thing like about magicians and performers really magicians like they give off

00:10:10.320 this aura of mystery you know they make everything look effortless and easy but you know we did this

00:10:16.540 post on uh harry houdini and sort of his work ethic a couple years ago and you know researching it like

00:10:21.940 i was blown away about how disciplined and how much willpower and how much of a hard worker this

00:10:29.240 guy's was like it was it was just it was mind-blowing it was a grind i mean do you did you take that sort

00:10:34.800 of workman-like approach to your magic as well yeah houdini was my hero growing up and and i think for a

00:10:41.320 lot of people you know there's no here's the thing about magic there's no practical reason to be a

00:10:47.500 magician if you want to be famous there are far better ways to become famous if you want to be

00:10:51.540 rich there are far better ways to become rich so you only do magic if you love it and and you know

00:10:57.600 some of the most hard-working people i know are magicians because it it just takes an extraordinary

00:11:04.180 amount of work not only to perform the shows and to go on tour but to develop the material and to teach

00:11:09.260 yourselves the skills that you need so so yeah i mean houdini sort of set the example for everyone

00:11:14.640 uh there's a quote of his that i have on my studio wall he says the real secret to my success is

00:11:21.040 simple i work from seven in the morning to midnight and i like it and uh you know i i hit

00:11:26.940 malcolm gladwell's 10 000 hours you know you've read that to become a master at anything you have to hit

00:11:32.540 10 000 hours i hit that when i was 22 and you know i think that's true for most magicians who

00:11:40.000 who are serious about it it just it takes a lot of time and a lot of work right so this is kind of

00:11:44.460 interesting quite i mean that kind of raises the question is magic like an art or is it more of a

00:11:50.280 craft like plumbing or carpentry i i it's both and i think i think the reason i love it or one of the

00:11:57.080 reasons i love it as a profession is it it's both it's sort of like building a cathedral you know first

00:12:03.260 you need to have this grand aesthetic vision and this this you know this wonderful dream of how it

00:12:09.920 will look when it's done you need that otherwise you know you'll never build anything but then you

00:12:15.520 also have to become a bricklayer and actually start to make it and uh and finish it and you know so

00:12:21.500 i think i think i'm similar to many other magicians and that the day is divided in two where every day

00:12:28.020 i have a series of things that i have to practice just to keep my skills up but then you also have to

00:12:33.140 look at you know the long term what am i trying to build what am i trying to create how do i want

00:12:38.320 this to feel and that allows you to you know create things on stage for people that that really feel

00:12:45.500 amazing and you also during this time when you were touring you started getting touring you got a

00:12:51.020 girlfriend you even got married like what did your girlfriend think now wife think was like you said 1.00

00:12:57.140 i'm a professional magician right because yeah you're like is this going anywhere or what's what's

00:13:02.280 happening uh we met uh while i was still in school she was in school as well and and before i had made

00:13:08.760 the jump to becoming a professional so i think we both you know knew what we were getting into a little

00:13:14.200 bit but it it is it is unusual you know that first year i was on the road all the time and um it it it's

00:13:22.800 certainly hard being away from home so often i will say though that you know i think it's important

00:13:27.860 to keep it in perspective going on tour is hard but it's not like fighting in afghanistan you know

00:13:33.160 it's not like there are many couples who have it have it much harder than we did and so yes it's hard

00:13:38.940 to be apart but um you know i don't want to whine about it because right we both signed up for it and

00:13:46.800 uh uh you know it turned out all right all right so you started you became a magician because you

00:13:52.880 loved that feeling of wonder awe that you experienced when you did a trick or you saw the

00:13:58.440 look on other people's face where they were just like blown away their minds blown got in it for that

00:14:03.940 reason you hit the road you reached a point where you lost it tell us about that moment when you

00:14:11.320 finally realized like i just don't feel the magic anymore in magic well so so let me say this first

00:14:18.100 i think most professions have this problem where they you know on the outside it looks glamorous and

00:14:26.120 it looks wonderful and exciting and and that sort of glittering veneer conceals a grinding day-to-day

00:14:34.320 reality within you know i i don't know anything about being an architect i think on the outside

00:14:39.740 being an architect looks amazing but i'm sure there are probably vast swaths of the job that

00:14:46.100 are tedious and and you know very much a grind and and the same is true for being a magician you know

00:14:51.980 we've already spoken about the the rigors of travel and and the amount of practice time that it takes but

00:14:57.480 i i i found you know i i as soon as i graduated from college i jumped into the world of touring as a

00:15:04.700 magician and after five years i was just burnt out i i i had thrown myself at this i dedicated my

00:15:11.880 entire life to this and i was just i was tired and and it didn't you know for for someone whose job

00:15:18.660 depends on being able to share that experience of wonder none of it felt very amazing at all

00:15:24.860 and and there was one night when i was on stage in milwaukee and i you know i had been on the road for

00:15:32.320 for a long time and in the middle of the show i just stopped and i said i'm sorry i'm done i'm

00:15:37.880 i'm gonna go good night and i went back to my hotel room not knowing what to do because

00:15:43.300 i i felt like whatever ship i was on was sinking and i needed to figure something else out yeah i mean

00:15:50.600 i do think that that's why i love this book because i think that happens like you said it happens to

00:15:54.340 everybody uh you know they get a profession or they start this thing that they love but then it

00:15:58.720 just they lose lose the spark and it becomes a grind i mean what's compelling about your story is that

00:16:04.520 your whole job is to convey magic right convey that feeling and you lost it too you know yeah that's

00:16:12.480 right you know when when you lose that spark in another profession you can you know maybe fall back

00:16:18.500 on the craft or or even just feeling like you're you're doing something useful for for the world but

00:16:24.040 as a magician when you lose that that sense of of um that spark or that you know that sense of wonder

00:16:31.200 about the work that's the very heart of the profession that that you lose and so i felt like

00:16:37.400 i was such a phony on stage because i was trying to give people this experience that that i couldn't

00:16:42.800 feel at all and you know a magician has to believe in the magic on some level or or it doesn't feel like

00:16:49.120 magic you know it just feels like a trick nobody likes being tricked nobody likes being deceived

00:16:53.600 but but a great magician can can use that craft of deception to give you something real sort of like

00:17:00.980 fiction right like a a good novelist can can make up the entire story you know magic is fake in the same

00:17:08.320 way that a novel is fake but that doesn't matter you're you're using it to give give the audience

00:17:12.520 something real but but as a magician when you become disconnected from that that sense of wonder

00:17:17.980 the whole thing just falls apart did this has this ever happened to other magicians like did this

00:17:23.400 happen houdini for example you get jaded about the profession he did you know most people most people

00:17:28.180 don't know this about houdini but but he spent the last i don't know third of his career trying to

00:17:33.280 get out of the magic business and you can read his letters and he talks about the rigors of being on the

00:17:38.060 road and how exhausted he is and and you know he he tried to get into the movie business uh he started

00:17:43.800 the houdini motion picture corporation because he wanted he wanted to find another way to work

00:17:49.080 and uh yeah i think i think it is i mean i you know as we said i think it's a liability in any job but

00:17:55.820 but it's especially true for the magician because because of the uh the importance of of uh wonder and

00:18:04.600 and you know feeling that when you're trying to give it to the audience so what did you tell your

00:18:08.860 wife when you said uh you know i don't know if i can do this anymore and yeah well i mean she she

00:18:13.240 she had been part of the process the whole time you know talking while i'm on the road and you call

00:18:17.760 home and and then when i'm home you know at first i was thrilled to go out on tour and and then i was

00:18:24.340 ambivalent about it and then i i dreaded it and i you know it was like a like a death sentence you

00:18:29.440 know watching that date come closer and closer on the calendar and and i think you know i think

00:18:34.780 she wanted me to figure it figure it out too because no one wants to live with someone who's 1.00

00:18:38.980 just miserable about their work all the time so so she was totally on board with me finding a way to

00:18:45.000 to sort of dream it all up again and and find a new way to approach my craft but um but but yeah

00:18:53.280 i i i certainly didn't know what to do right well the one thing you came up with which out of the

00:18:59.620 blue is like i'm gonna go to india right and the land of mystery like what you know sometimes it

00:19:06.980 honestly it was a coincidence like sometimes the universe is just an amazing place and incredible

00:19:11.400 things happen on their own that on you know on tour there's plenty of time to read because you get

00:19:17.900 sick of playing games on your phone very quickly and so i you know i just read a lot when i was on the

00:19:22.320 road in the hotel or on the airport in the airplane or backstage after a show or before a show and and

00:19:27.660 on the leg of the tour where i quit in the middle of the show i just happened to be reading this

00:19:32.820 it was an academic text about traditional indian street magic and so when i left the theater and

00:19:39.460 went back to my hotel i you know i was laying on the bed in like the super eight or whatever it was

00:19:44.760 reading this book about traditional indian street magic and it the whole thing started as this crazy

00:19:49.960 idea like what what if i leave this whole world of touring in america behind and forget everything

00:19:56.380 i know about being a professional magician and travel to the other side of the world and and try

00:20:02.100 to dream it all up again you know the the mission statement at the beginning was how can i put myself

00:20:08.940 back into the the mindset of being in the audience you know maybe i could go because india india has this

00:20:15.700 tradition of magic that's famous in the world of magician so i wanted to go see snake charmers and

00:20:20.800 fire breathers and street performers and and see anything that would amaze me to try and rediscover

00:20:27.220 why i like magic in the first place i mean one trick that you described that sounded brutal but i

00:20:31.720 never knew it existed was like this like is it the resurrection trick that happens in india it has a

00:20:35.920 few different names yeah but but it's i mean the thing the thing you have to understand about

00:20:40.260 the magic that i saw over there is that it's 3 000 years old there's a a tradition of magic that

00:20:48.100 stretches back for 3 000 years with the secrets passed from you know the parents to their children

00:20:53.420 and then over and over and over again and you know to be fair some of those illusions look like

00:20:59.240 they're 3 000 years old and when when i saw them you know with modern eyes sort of looking with all

00:21:05.020 of the experience i had as a magician some of it wasn't amazing at all but there were a few pieces that

00:21:09.320 were just staggeringly good and yeah one of them is where you you know so that usually the magician

00:21:17.300 works with his son it's a a combination act where the son is the assistant but i i saw and it was

00:21:25.120 brutal the father took a um a sword and seemingly butchered you know his child and there's this boy

00:21:34.260 who's bleeding and then he covers just lying on the ground and he covers him with a sheet and brings him

00:21:38.420 back to life and you can imagine how you know 2 000 years ago 3 000 years ago if you saw that in a

00:21:45.800 village it would just feel like a miracle well in like what is the tradition of magic in india so like

00:21:52.020 it's it's old um and we're forming like these street tricks like the the cobra stuff the the rope i guess

00:21:59.460 that really didn't happen you talk about in the book but this thing yeah yeah the rope trick is a hoax

00:22:04.400 right but but let me say this so every culture in the world has its own culture and tradition of magic

00:22:11.420 it's just like food or theater or music right magic is a cultural expression um as as much as the other

00:22:19.020 art forms and so uh you know magic in one culture would look different than magic in another culture

00:22:26.020 um in in india there's this tradition of these nomadic tribes of street performers that would travel

00:22:32.860 around the country performing from village to village and and you know so much of their their

00:22:39.000 material reflects the challenges of living in a place like india where it's hot and um you know

00:22:45.320 sometimes you're faced with extreme poverty or or you know lack of nutrition so so like a

00:22:52.300 an illusion they performed is they show a basket that's empty and they cover it with a cloth and they

00:22:57.880 open it up and it's filled with food and they pass all the food around and they show a bowl that's empty

00:23:01.880 and totally empty and they cover it with cloth and it's filled with water and everyone can have

00:23:06.020 something to drink and uh you know it it's it's very far removed from the world of card tricks

00:23:12.420 that you know sprung up in in europe but i thought it was fascinating and and uh you know i went there

00:23:21.040 looking for those illusions but what i found very quickly was that you know and i found them and they

00:23:28.080 were great but but even more amazing than the magic that i saw was the culture of india and the people

00:23:35.320 of india and the experience of traveling in a place that was so different from my own country and my own

00:23:42.060 culture you know i was totally out of my element and uh and as a result i couldn't fall back on any of

00:23:49.200 the sort of i don't know patterns or or behaviors that you know you normally use in your own culture

00:23:56.840 everything was new and everything was uh different and i i felt like i had to pay attention and i was

00:24:03.040 alert and awake and uh and and that more than the magic i saw was was unbelievably wonderful yeah i mean

00:24:10.880 that's a great i mean wonder is experiencing something new so by putting yourself in a completely

00:24:15.460 foreign situation you're more likely to experience that yeah i mean it's like what we were speaking

00:24:20.120 about earlier how if it's true that as adults we we become very good at making things ordinary

00:24:26.200 then one of the ways you can break yourself out of that is by plunging yourself into an environment

00:24:32.060 where nothing is ordinary and and you know as a result you're you're not living from moment to moment

00:24:39.220 on your certainties but instead on your instincts and your observations and and you know magic and travel

00:24:46.180 are very similar and that they both uh can deliver this cataclysmic death blow to your sense of

00:24:53.200 certainty about the world and your place in the world and so rather than living in the story that

00:24:58.820 you tell yourself about the world all the time you're just living in the world itself and that that is

00:25:03.980 amazing what i thought was interesting is you know you india has this reputation of being this land of

00:25:09.240 mystery and wonder but when you got there like you found that i think you talked about you described how

00:25:14.980 people in india were actually pretty ambivalent about that reputation in fact they try to be like

00:25:19.800 they'd go out of the way it's like no we're scientific we don't believe in that stuff those

00:25:23.720 are just tricks what do you think is going on there yeah i mean i think that the image of india as a land

00:25:29.420 of mystery is antiquated and you know outdated and has its roots in a lot of sort of questionable

00:25:36.500 colonial uh practices from from so long ago you know it it was it was easy for the european powers to

00:25:46.480 um embrace rationalism and science in their own culture and and to say that anyone who didn't live

00:25:54.180 like that you know must live in a land of mystery but india is a modern superpower and and you know the

00:26:00.480 people i met were were were quick to assure me that the reputation of india as a land of mystery is

00:26:07.380 just a fabrication and uh and you know some of them loved seeing magic and some of them didn't just

00:26:14.500 like just like in america just like in the united kingdom you know i want to be clear that i didn't go

00:26:19.120 to india because i thought that it was a land of mystery i went because i wanted to find those people

00:26:25.460 who were performing the illusions that i was reading about in the book and you know i could

00:26:30.240 have gone anywhere if i was reading a book about traditional japanese magic i would have gone to

00:26:34.580 japan or china i i just got lucky and and went to india and like what did these street magicians you

00:26:41.280 know have the tradition that goes back thousands of years when you told them like i too am a magician

00:26:46.520 like what did well how did they receive you well so let me let me set the stage just a little bit

00:26:52.980 at the end of the book that i was reading there was this lengthy interaction with with one of the

00:27:00.140 tribes of traveling street magicians that has settled in a slum outside new delhi called shatapur

00:27:06.180 depot and and when i finished the book and decided that i was going to go to india i wrote the the author

00:27:13.920 of the book an email and said listen i'm going over there are you still in touch with any of these people

00:27:18.020 and could you facilitate an introduction and that worked out so so on my trip i knew that i had to

00:27:24.060 be on a particular corner at a particular day at a particular time and one you know the leader of

00:27:29.320 this tribe would would take me in and and talk to me about his his illusions and i get to see all the

00:27:35.000 stuff that i read about you know i i had never been in a slum before and it was just it was unlike

00:27:43.360 anything i've ever ever experienced it was like you know you look at those pictures of dresden

00:27:47.540 that was bombed in world war ii and that's the closest thing that i can it was just rubble and

00:27:53.140 garbage and tarps you know forming houses and and in this wasteland of an environment i discovered one

00:28:01.040 of the most kind welcoming families you could possibly imagine when they discovered that i was a magician

00:28:07.060 and i wanted to talk with them about magic they welcomed welcomed me into their home like i was a long

00:28:12.560 lost member of their family and and you know i thought i was just going to speak for an hour and

00:28:18.240 i spent the whole day with them and they cooked this enormous feast and and showed me all of the magic

00:28:23.540 that that i wanted to see and they also wanted to see the magic that i did some of the pieces in my show

00:28:29.460 have their roots in in that traditional indian magic and so it was it was incredible for me to

00:28:35.880 be able to show them my version and they could they could show me theirs and you know we we had

00:28:41.200 nothing in common i i'm a magician from iowa and and they live in a slum outside new delhi so we had

00:28:47.120 nothing in common but magic but but that was enough no as you described that you know they're living in

00:28:53.000 the slum but yet they're able to make a life for themselves right i mean it's that's magic it's like

00:28:59.580 that's like alchemy right you're turning lead into gold that's that's exactly it it felt like an actual

00:29:05.280 miracle and and i'll tell you what's even more amazing the the leader of that tribe works as a

00:29:11.100 magician in india he performs at parties he performs you know wherever he can he just hustles

00:29:16.140 for a living he hustles like you would not believe and he saved enough money to wire his home in the

00:29:23.480 middle of the slum with internet access so that he could using the internet and a computer that he was

00:29:30.780 able to afford after just saving up after show after show after show after show so so his children

00:29:36.020 could learn online and you know hopefully hopefully have a better life and and uh that when i saw that

00:29:44.220 and i i understood just from speaking from to to him what what he had to do to make that possible

00:29:50.400 like how many people see that slum and and just dismiss it you know as as as um you know like i said

00:29:59.000 a wasteland not knowing that inside there's this family who are making this incredible life for

00:30:05.520 themselves and for their children it was i i was there you know almost a decade ago and i think

00:30:11.840 about that every day it was just remarkable so was it was it that so the experience that in the

00:30:18.360 totality or was there like a moment where you saw a you know an illusion and you're like you had

00:30:25.000 you were wow i mean was it or was it both like i you know i i in the book i i talk about some of

00:30:30.900 the illusions that they showed me but but even and they were remarkable and and there's one in

00:30:36.080 particular i saw this version their version of the fire breathing illusion that i i still can't explain

00:30:41.100 to this day but far more amazing than any of the magic i saw were the people themselves how

00:30:46.040 in this incredibly tough i mean just unbelievably tough i'd never seen anything like it that they

00:30:52.940 were able to create this life for themselves and treat you know i i i guess i didn't know what to

00:31:02.960 expect and and the reality that i discovered blew me away and that was far more amazing than any of the

00:31:10.680 magic that i saw so you know i've i've talked to other people who've had this similar experience you

00:31:15.420 know they weren't a magician but they they somehow got disenchanted with life and so they go on this

00:31:19.580 like trip or a journey and they experience that transformative moment where they rediscover

00:31:24.520 wonder again now the hard part it seems is like how do you bring that back with you

00:31:30.460 to your ordinary world right you had that feeling in india but like at some point you had to return to

00:31:35.880 ames iowa so how did you take that back with you yeah it's one thing to be amazed on the other side

00:31:41.860 of the world when you're living out of a backpack traveling through the foothills of the himalayan

00:31:45.840 mountains it's another thing as you say to bring it back to iowa you know i i think that's probably

00:31:51.620 that's probably the the main idea that i came home with that you know i went to india to rediscover

00:32:01.380 the sense of wonder but you don't have to go to india it you can find that that same spark that i was

00:32:08.420 looking for anywhere you can find it in music or movies or basketball or poetry or mountaintops or

00:32:14.500 sunrises or sunsets right it's more about it's more about how you look than where you look and

00:32:19.960 even more than that it's about remembering to look you know i know in my own experience how easy it is

00:32:28.720 to disappear into the the to-do list of every day and to break every day into nothing more than a list

00:32:36.060 of things that i want to work and do and accomplish and that's it and and you know you can you can lose

00:32:42.780 a day or a week or a month or a year or a lifetime without ever pulling your head out of that machine

00:32:48.980 and looking around and and and the idea i came home with was if you stop and try to find that sense of

00:32:59.820 of of of wonder and awe wherever you are you will find it you just have to remember to look for it

00:33:07.000 there's that there's that joseph campbell quote and i'm going to butcher this but he said something

00:33:13.240 like people talk about searching for the meaning of life but what they're actually looking for is

00:33:19.560 is the rapturous joy of feeling alive and when i think back on my my time in india and also just

00:33:27.300 in my experience as a human being my favorite moments aren't aren't my victories you know the

00:33:33.460 moments where i feel like i've succeeded at something they're the moments where i feel like

00:33:37.120 i'm most awake and alert and alive and you know people find that in all sorts of ways but but for me the

00:33:46.100 single greatest distinction between having that in my life and not having that in my life is is the

00:33:52.900 daily practice of looking for it if you look for it you'll find it it's just you have to remember to

00:33:57.960 look where do you look on a day-to-day basis well so so many places you know i i think travel is still

00:34:04.000 a very good way of doing that but um you know i've i have two young children now and the youngest who's

00:34:10.000 three has this this routine that he does every night before bed he insists on going out to say good

00:34:17.180 night to the stars and it sounds like it sounds like uh it sounds sort of ridiculous you know it

00:34:23.460 sounds like a cliche until you try it and and then it doesn't sound like a cliche anymore then it doesn't

00:34:28.920 feel like a cliche every night when we go outside and just you make two minutes before going to bed

00:34:35.400 you just carve out two minutes to go up and look outside and remember that it goes on forever above

00:34:41.580 you and forever below you and forever all around and that somehow you are here to be a part of this

00:34:46.440 that has you know that has influenced me as much as going to india anyway i'm grateful to him for

00:34:52.860 wanting to do that because when it's cold when it's late when i'm tired i don't want to do that

00:34:57.760 but but having him insist on going out to say good night to the stars has been very good for me

00:35:02.580 certainly yeah having kids definitely can help you find the one because they're looking for they can see

00:35:07.560 it right yeah you know and they can see it and i i remember when i was a young kid you know as a young

00:35:14.700 magician you see you see here's what happens as as a kid you see how your adults the adults in your

00:35:23.820 life act all of the time teachers parents grandparents neighbors but but the young magician gets this sort of

00:35:31.520 window into a different side of the adults in your life because when you show them a piece of magic

00:35:37.360 they for a second they're not adults anymore you get to see this glimpse of how they were when they

00:35:44.020 were kids you know i talked about that teacher on the playground when i made the coin disappear

00:35:47.680 but i saw that hundreds of times and and it makes you realize as a young kid looking forward it you know

00:35:56.260 towards adulthood that you lose something when you become an adult and and my interest in magic was was

00:36:02.780 as you know as much in that as anything what do you lose what what have these people lost what happened

00:36:08.460 to you and how can how can you get it back how's your career as a magician looking like now you know

00:36:15.540 i i just had this book come out and so writing a book is it's a all-encompassing experience in a way

00:36:24.840 that i did not expect at first i was you know writing while i was on tour and i'd i'd go back to the

00:36:31.220 hotel room afterwards and write for an hour and then again when i woke up the next morning before

00:36:35.360 the flight but uh to finish the book i stopped touring and just finished you know just just wrote

00:36:41.440 and uh when the book came out in january i i went back on the road again and i'm about to start my

00:36:47.580 fall tour and so you know it's i'm in this strange spot right now where i write books and i tour as a

00:36:53.980 magician and you know i'm making it up as i go but but i love it and i feel very lucky that i get to do

00:36:59.920 all of this you feel like you the magic's back in your magic it is yeah i i feel like after having

00:37:06.220 finished the book i can see the magic in a way that i couldn't see it before i i know what i'm

00:37:11.380 shooting for and i think i know how to hit it well nate is there some place people go to learn more

00:37:15.680 about your work um you know i think the i think the best place is just the book i i put everything

00:37:21.160 that i have to say about magic and and wonder and disillusionment and and rediscovering wonder

00:37:27.460 in your daily life you know all of that is in the book so if you're interested it's called here is

00:37:32.300 real magic you can find it on amazon or at any bookstore and anyway i hope you enjoy it nate

00:37:37.960 stanforth thanks for coming on it's been a pleasure thank you so much my guest today was nate staniforth

00:37:42.440 he's the author of the book here is real magic you can find out more information about his work at

00:37:46.660 natestaniforth.com you can find the book on amazon.com and also check out our show notes at

00:37:51.660 aom.is slash real magic where you find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic

00:37:56.440 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:38:13.200 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoyed

00:38:16.900 the show you've gotten something out of it i'd appreciate if you take one minute to give us a

00:38:20.040 view on itunes or stitcher it helps out a lot and if you've done that already thank you please

00:38:23.920 consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you would think would get something out

00:38:27.220 of it as always thank you for your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay

00:38:30.900 telling you to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - October 31, 2018

#454： A Magician's Search for Wonder in the Modern World

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript