From afar, there have been many people I’ve had overly negative or harsh opinions about. This is antithetical to the kind of person I want to be and yet, my innate willingness to judge seeps in.

It’s when I get close to the person that I realize they are not as obnoxious, stupid or awful as my original perception. In fact, I grow to like and admire many of their qualities. The more this happens, the more I realize the world only works better if we actually get to know each other.

If there’s one thing I learned from the many young audiences I encountered as a magician, kids generally react the same way regardless of location or demographic. It was never any good to judge a show’s audience before you got there.

Or in the case of Matt Harding (who danced around the world), he is proof that people are generally joyful when you get close.

Unfortunately, it’s the harsh judgements that prevent it from happening.

Today was my anniversary and in the grand scheme of the many wonderful people I know, I’m still a raging newbie. It’s fun to be able to learn from others, but there’s some lessons that you just have to learn on your own.

Since sealing my vows, I’ve learned:

• Nope. Just, no. It’s not a good idea.
• Okay, but you’re going to pay for that and is the price worth it?
• Just smile, say yes and know you’ll be in a better place tomorrow because you always do

While there are many others I could learn from, who have decades of experiences ahead of me, there’s something enticing about learning about partnership as you go. It’s a symbiotic dance and when it goes in unison, it’s magical.

However, there are times when the two of you will be out of step and you’ll have to learn how to listen to the music to get back on the beat again. Unfortunately, some don’t (and for good reasons in many cases).

It’s been an exhilarating adventure and over the past few years, it’s been edifying to know I’ve picked the best partner to be with through thick and thin. I can only hope the upcoming years will be even better than the last.

But, regardless of what may come, I know we have the strength to work through it because as tough as it has been, we’ve felt the joy every day we’ve been in it.

There’s been a lot of talk about privacy in recent years, especially from tech companies “committed to data privacy.” It almost seems like a silly nomenclature of corporate talk because the idea of a private life is all but gone.

“What have you been up to?” is a question now given out of politeness instead of curiosity.

It was the privacy of someone’s thoughts that pulled our interest, hoping to tug at a few strands to see what was going on. And where it would get interesting is if we didn’t know, we would speculate—or gossip.

And while we pretend to have a semblance of privacy by either not participating in grand social schemes, or carefully curating what we show, nothing is private from the endless computer systems mining every bit of data about us.

This isn’t to say a golden age has passed us by (far from it), and there are many advantages to predictive behaviour analysis (“Why yes, I do want tacos tonight!”), but what’s lost is that sometimes, we just want to privately participate in what’s happening with our own life.

Other times, we just want to tell a story without having someone already know how it’s going to end.

For me, I want to feel like my ten year old self wandering through the stacks of books at the library, ending up in random sections and picking up random books: the biography of James Naismith, a strategy guide for Monopoly, how to do simple magic tricks.

Nobody knew who I was and nobody could tell me what I was going to like. I just got to wander and choose.

I don’t know what world we will enter into in this next decade, but that is something I’m going to miss.

My parents celebrated their 45th anniversary today.

While I’m very disappointed I couldn’t be there to celebrate with them on this monumental occasion, they provided enough comic relief.

For starters, they didn’t even remember it was their anniversary. I had my kids send them a card in the mail and it wasn’t until they opened it that they realized what day was coming (this was yesterday). As a sign of affection and love for all those years together, my dad mixed my mom a drink and then took her out for ice cream.

It’s cute because I’ve never known them to drink and all my mom wanted was the ice cream.

Aside from the laughter I shared with my siblings about their situation, I came to understand that it was just another day for them. In the long run of life, there wasn’t a need to do anything spectacular. The things we sweat about don’t really matter all that much and at the end of the day, all we really want is a beverage and a banana split.

It’s comforting to know.

…

It’s also comforting to have technology remind us of important dates as we need them.

the best version of who I am.

Many moons ago, as a younger child (I’m a much older child now), I had this great idea that camping was fun. I went on several trips with cousins as my parents refused to participate in such activity. They would later tell me that, as immigrants, they grew up sleeping on the floor and worked hard in order to never do it again.

As much as I thought I enjoyed the experience, what I really enjoyed was the company.

Years later, when I attempted another trip, I knew it wasn’t for me. Thankfully, the person I was with felt the same way and we agreed this would be something we’d never do for fun. I think we even wrote it in our wedding vows.

Last weekend, we took our kids camping, by request of our son for his birthday gift.

We setup the tent, tarps and even got a fire going pretty easily. We cooked hamburgers, roasted marshmallows and made s’mores. We went to bed…

…and then the torrential rainstorm began.

It didn’t stop.

At night.

Or in the morning.

By 7am, I had the kids packed up in the car and we were gone—ready to return and pack up the site when the rain stopped (which it didn’t until the next day). We could’ve “braved” it, but it was a hard no from me.

I am not a camper and to expect that of me will be met with great disappointment. As I like to tell people, I’m the great indoorsman.

There are many other things I am not, as much as I would like to be them.

However, what I can be is the best version of everything that I am right now. And if other people I meet acknowledge who they are and strive to be the best version of themselves, what more could I ask for?

If you tell ten people with critical health conditions that they need to change something about their life in order to survive… two people will do it.

When I first read about that study, I was dumbfounded.

While we all have issues understanding an idea, making a habit stick or doing something to think differently, the motivation of survival should surely be enough motivation. As it turns out, it’s not.

Our brains are wired in a way that it can take multiple attempts, viewpoints and approaches before something works. The synapses require multiple connections that are strengthened by continuous repetition.

If you keep at it enough, it will click at some point.

But it requires dedication, patience and a willingness to make it happen.

And the combination of those three are hard to come by.

It was brought to my attention the other day that I will be part of the last generation to fully live through this current renaissance period we are in.

At first, I had to consider whether we are actually living through one, but considering history has a tendency to repeat itself (over… and over… and over…), it’s quite clear:

The renaissance is in communication and information.

This time period we are in is the Gutenberg Printing Press all over again. The difference this time is the flow of information is being accelerated by the parallel strides in communication.

Anybody, at any time, anywhere on the planet can get access to the entirety of human knowledge, video chat with a friend and watch a cat video. And the growing pains are coming alongside it.

If you consider the number one selling book after the printing press was “The Hammer of Witches” (a self-help book to help identify a witch) and then you consider what people are looking at today, we have a lot of growing up to do. The good news is a renaissance is usually preceded or followed by an enlightenment.

Unfortunately, enlightenment periods come after a period of ignorance and stupidity.

Seems to be where we’re at right now.

But the best part is being able to document and understand the messy, and chaotic, nature of change. Now we just wait for what’s just around the corner.

Going it alone requires a certain kind of mindset and produces a particular outcome. It can be useful when there is work to be done and focus required to get there.

However, if a person wants to improve, better themselves, see their weaknesses and build a support system, they will need others. They need a friend (at minimum) who has the same desire and mindset, working towards the same ideal.

I can say that everything I’ve built and done so far has been the direct result of the people I’ve known. Those who were providing the supports weren’t doing it out of some obligation (well… maybe my parents), but for a genuine desire to help.

But that is the hardest part.

Admitting you need for help.

Admitting you need others.

And the hardest of all… accepting that help.

During the summers of my college life, I worked on an assembly line. One of those days, I worked alongside someone who was telling me about his wife who was a writer with three books published to date.

I was obviously interested and intrigued, then headed out to grab a copy of her latest work. A supernatural foray of women and witches—Dime Store Magic by Kelley Armstrong.

It was neat. I definitely wasn’t into the whole supernatural genre, but could appreciate the fun the book brought.

He later remarked that while she received mostly positive reviews for her work, one critic tore into her claiming she’s got too much talent to be writing in such a dead-end genre. It was a waste of her time.

A year later, Twilight came out.

It wasn’t long before publishers were begging for more supernatural works. By this point, Armstrong had already established herself in that space and her career skyrocketed.

When I first started blogging under my own name, it was a crowded place and the advice was all over the place for how to get discovered:

Write daily
Don’t write daily
Write long posts
Write short posts
Add an image
Write a compelling headline
Guest post everywhere
etc.

Whenever a new trend popped up, you suddenly saw the entire blogosphere adapt and chase what was new. Then blogging “died” and was “replaced” with micro-blogging, social media posting, video, immersive websites, etc.

At some point, I got sick of following all the hype and decided to just keep writing on a simple site that put readability above anything else. Right now, there’s a ton of people moving towards simple text-focused sites to show their writing.

All those other bloggers who were chasing trends… or even giving the advice?

Gone.

Amateur investors right now are chasing all the trends (“Gamestop!” “Bitcoin!” “Dogecoin!”), then wondering why they keep losing all their money.

When you see a trend, it’s already too late to ride the wave.

You’re better off creating your own trend, or sticking to what you love until it becomes a trend again… and then riding the wave that comes with it.

The joy of youth, especially the extremely young, is having no semblance or clue for the world around you.

It’s the creativity of being able to take disparate ideas, mash them together, make it a game and let it be your world for a day. The idea of fun is whatever comes to mind and eventually, you develop your own style.

For a short moment in history, you are your own person.

It then gets grounded out of you in your attempt to conform to the world. Sometimes, it happens in small doses until your personality becomes a death by a thousand cuts. Other times, it’s a giant leap, thrust upon you by no fault of your own.

It takes the rest of your life working out the crud and finding the heart of what brought you joy in the first place.

And while it may seem like an arduous journey, it’s worth every step back.