Pursuing Your Passion (Magic)… But Not before Education. February 25, 2013

So I heard about some young magicians quitting school to do magic full time. I’ve been tempted to do that before too. But now, as a full time magician, with the knowledge of the industry and who things run (generally), I would never encourage any of the budding magicians to quit school to perform magic.

It isn’t like I’ve not been through the ‘study and work at the same time’ kind of life. To provide a clearer understanding, I started performing in University Year 1 in the now defunct Party Wizardz, and was at the same time simultaneously juggling operations for Magic Boutique, as well as crewing and part time work for Concept: Magic. Oh, and in case you might think I was in an ‘easy’ (or what my peers termed as “slack”) field of studies, I wasn’t. I was in a moderately demanding course, which was made slightly more demanding by choosing to take the degree at honours level. For the interested, I have an honours degree in Biological Sciences, and it took me four years.  In year four, I took over as J C and Ning’s show co-ordinator, working with them almost full time, on top of my FYP, performances and Magic Boutique work.

Throughout my four years, I had friends asking me why I didn’t quit school to do magic. I was pushing myself really hard with no rest days on weekends and working and studying (and rehearsing) on weekdays. Technically, I was earning a comfortable salary (2-3K a month) during the weekends already. Presumably I could earn more if I were to quit school and turn full time. Even at times I wondered why I had to struggle so hard… sometimes performing 15 shows in a month on top of everything. But, after all of it, I would say I made the right decision.

Magic is an intellectual art form. For the audience to appreciate the magic, they must be able to think and process thoughts. Here’s an example, if I were to produce an item from an empty box, and my audience cannot think and understand that the box were empty to begin with and that there is no way to put something inside without their noticing, then there would be no magic. And since magic is an intellectual art form, to be able to fool an intellectual audience, it goes in a logical manner to say that the magician must have a certain level of intellect and expertise to perform magic at a high level. Now, I’m not saying that a higher educational degree guarantees that the person has a high level of intellect, not at all. But I’m saying that higher education to a certain degree still trains a person’s thinking and that might aid in pushing up the level of intellect.

Of course, you can quote me dozens of shrewd businessman/ founders or CEOs of huge companies who drop out of school. Are they not intellectual you might ask. (Sometimes I like to just point out that out of these people quoted, more than half actually drop out of a PRESTIGIOUS school like Cambridge/ Oxford etc. They actually qualified for these places in the first place!) Educational level once again, does not guarantee intellect but aids in building that. There are also hundreds of people who dropped out too. What is the success percentage?

Magic (or close-up magic in particular, as well as mentalism) requires a magician to be able to converse well. There is a saying in magic: Magic is all about COMMUNICATION. Again, a higher level of education does not necessarily mean you can speak eloquently. However, you do have more chances to converse and talk with people at a higher level required when you are in an educational institute and hence have a better go at building up better conversational skills. Presentations and talking to lecturers or even peers at this level improves your conversational skill and presenting skills. If one is not able to present a presentation where all the information is on the screen, how can one be expected to present magic when the vital information is ‘hidden’ and you have to do more than three different things at the same time?

I’m not the traditional kind of person who thinks a person must do a traditional route, have a degree, do what is deemed as a stable job, blah blah blah. Obviously not, since I’m not even in a traditional ‘stable’ or ‘conventional’ job. In Singapore, the education system is (to me) obviously flawed with unbalanced importance being placed on science vs arts etc. But there are still things that work. At a higher educational level, I do not believe that one will only be learning and absorbing the subject matter. If you are, I’m sorry, that’s not learning, but route learning and that’s not what education is about.

My point? Education is vital. If you were to want to do something at a high level, learning to think at a high level is important. I make no judgment of whether the decision to quit school and pursue (specifically) magic is good or bad to the individual. That will be something only the person-in-question can answer years down the road. But if you’re thinking and wondering whether to quit school to pursue your magic interest full time, I hope you take the time to consider and weigh out the pros and cons. Think not just of the present income, but of your future income. Remember, to have longevity in the industry, you need to not only be able to perform the things you do right now, but have the ability to push to do different things at a higher level. Do you have the training to do that? If you believe you do, do go ahead. If you don’t, perhaps you should seriously re-consider quitting school to pursue magic full time.

Oh and if I might add?

Sometimes you just have to sit down and be honest with yourself rather than listening to friends’ opinions to make a good judgement. (And by the way, being sincerely honest with oneself while being ignorant doesn’t do anything to help either, so do your research beforehand!)