I was never much of a planner. My general approach was an ad hoc, free-spirit kind of lifestyle while life just happened as it will.

It was an attitude that permeated everything I did.

To me, planning was nothing more than trying to take control of a world that wants chaos. Plus, there is no spontaneity in it and where was the fun in that?

The issue was when it came to things like a magic show, it was horribly obvious my act wasn’t planned from beginning to end. I was getting by an experience.

In the classroom, I just went with a daily plan and no idea of a bigger picture. I stayed afloat thanks to my own creativity and the roadmap of others.

Let’s not get into how little I would plan life events.

I’ve come to understand, appreciate and learn that having the proper preparation and a meticulous plan are not impediments to life: they are necessary. The more planning you put into something, the better prepared you will be for whatever circumstance comes your way. Will there be curveballs?

Always.

But, those get added to the next plan.

Take, for instance, comedians. Their entire act is planned and carefully rehearsed—even those moments where it appears they are going off the rails or improvising. They rarely, if ever, improvise. Each “quick comeback” or one-liner is something prepared from a show where it happened before.

All I know is that after decades of the false promise of “I got this,” meticulous planning is finally ensuring that I do got this.

Many of us are familiar with Occam’s razor as a tool for explanation, but Hanlon’s razor flies under the radar.

Simply put: don’t attribute malice when it is easily explained by stupidity.

We are in a world of quick, knee-jerk reaction decisions and shallow thinking. Unfortunately, you cannot make an assumption that underneath that is a pool of wisdom.

Of course, if we keep invoking Hanlon’s razor quite liberally, we run into the natural assumption that everything is done out of sheer stupidity. Which, in consideration, isn’t too far off the mark:

Just go for a drive in rush-hour traffic.
Or spend five minutes on Twitter.
Or listen to a politician’s speech.

Yes, there’s definitely enough malicious intent out there and we should be on guard for it. However, for the everyday judgement, Hanlon’s razor serves us best.

There are some areas… many areas actually… where I accept my competency of knowledge is limited. If there’s a circle of what experts know, I may take up a few dots within it.

In a few areas, I know my circle is pretty full.

The danger is when I’m in a circle where I’m actually a dot, but think I’m more. Those are the circles we are bad decisions are made and it will consequences happen. And the more confident I feel, the more tragic the outcome.

The worst feeling is finding out how little I actually know, but it’s the best way to learning what I need.

The trick, of course, is accepting I don’t know as much as I think I do… or that maybe, the circle of competence has changed and what I had is no longer useful.

It’s something I think about quite often as any study into the history of religions always show how fluid they’ve been. They don’t quite adapt, but they do cycle: tradition, conflict, reaction, new tradition.

Sometimes that conflict is with society and sometimes it’s within itself. It’s usually a mix of both.

Right now, we are on the precise of the reaction and new tradition part of the cycle. The conflict that’s been happening is a heavy dose of society and internal—specifically, the mass education of those within who are not some form of clergy.

The reactions are forming at various seams within traditions, resulting in a splintering that can only be described as a window whose minor cracks have exploded outwards.

In other words, people are pissed and they’re taking matters into their own hands.

I don’t see this as an end to Religion any more than the Internet killing the music industry. Obviously the music industry transformed (no judgement on whether it’s been positive or negative), but artists are still creating.

What I would like to see is less of a partisan attachment to a particular thread of tradition and a move towards conversation that will push us all forward.

What I would hate is further silos.

The question is how do we ensure the conversation can happen?

There’s self reflection and there’s honest reflection.

The first is easy to come by as it’s what most people consider an honest reflection, as evidenced by the array of social media posts to put up an opinion.

Dig deeper and most of these, including many private journal entries, are still carefully curated presentations of ego. Seeing your thoughts and writing is still seeing a reflection of yourself and the easiest person to fool… is us.

It’s a self-preservation mechanism.

What we really need is honesty.

And that can only come if you’re ready to hear it from others—or ourselves.

Most times, we need both.

This past week has been a doozy as I received my second vaccine dose (yes!) and then dealt with some harsh side-effects. I spent a few days, as my wife so brilliantly coined, “parenting from the couch.”

Oddly enough, I did more walking than ever as I was told the constant movement helps.

However, it also gave me time to dive deep into some new literature that examines whether the rapid communication of today’s business world has actually helped or hindered real work. It wasn’t so much the main arguments that intrigued me, but the off-beat notes.

For instance, the author’s grandfather, who was a professor, wrote books and papers by hand on yellow legal pads, then handed them in to be typed up and submitted. We think we’re in a better place now because we can type, edit and submit ourselves in an instant, but that little tidbit had me wondering how much time is actually spent mucking around on devices rather than doing real work.

Or the sheer amount of time I spend writing emails to parents who message me, only to erase them and call them on the phone as it’s much more efficient.

Or even consider the office and the façade of busywork, only to realize not a whole lot got accomplished at the end of the day. However, because it looked like work, it goes unquestioned.

Or how much of our attention is hijacked when we have to do some difficult problem solving, or how resistant we are to diving deeply into something and resort back to something shallow (“Let me just send this email.”)

It seems we live in a time where it’s much easier to pretend to do work because we haven’t learned how to leverage the great tools at our disposal. Mainly, the strengths of people and utilizing them in the best way.

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.