It's not just magic. If we look around, we'l find that many people are not ready and able to understand many things, and IMHO it's partially because they're not interested and therefore unwilling. For instance, I'm not into rap at all, and therefore I have no conception of what it all means and how much work might go into a performance.

Magic is no diferent than many other fields.

Sorry to follow my own post, but I just went back over this whole thread and discovered a few interesting tidbits. On the idea that some people are not "ready and able to understand many things," another issue becomes whether they care about it at all.

I mentioned above that I'm not into rap (as an example), so I don't take the initiative to listen to it, or, if I happen to hear it somewhere, I don't pay attention to it. It's not a value judgement: it's just an observation of my own behavior. This is no different than someone showing a trick to somebody, and the somebody not caring about it. Like, "fine, you made that card go to the top of the deck, or you made that elephant disappear, but I just don't care. It doesn't mean anything to me." I've known people like this, and they can be perfectly okay otherwise, but they just don't have any interest in magic tricks.

So, sure, as childish as it may be, when someone comes along and says, "hey, lookit what I can do," without any reason for it, and without showing the spectators why they should care, the spectators can think the performer is weird and make fun of him or her. Or, as has been said here many times, "if I had that [deck, box, change bag, whatever], I could do that too."

No different than, for instance, Dr. Brennan in the TV series Bones talking to a non-scientist in detailed medical lingo and getting a weird reaction in response, and then not understanding why she got the weird reaction.

I agree 100% with your comments, George.

Yes George ...

I must come to grips with no one wishing to learn or appreciate magic as I do - or has the capacity or experience or discipline to do so.

On the flip side, I can accept that any activity that draws a person away for the vicarious, limited world view of a tiny screen is a good thing.

Do I think that a teenager excited over some "gotcha event" is going to replace his intellectually stunted upbringing? No!

Do I thing that learning magic tricks on YouTube prepares a person for live audience engagement? No!

Can getting involved with performance magic at any level and for any reason be a good thing for personal development. Yup!

Can we make people care about anything? Doubtful - but we might plant a seed.

I will perform less and less as the chance of finding an audience appreciative of magic deceases.

BUT - I might get excited about doing flashy tricks for senior centers or youth groups with no objective other than "being other than cybernetic."

The Vanishing Wheel Chair Project has proved that learning ANY magic trick can change a person's life. Why not any teen or any senior?

Along the way I might meet someone prepared to master "a finer magic." One can hope.

As someone once said, you can lead a horse to the water, but you can't make it drink.

Or as someone else said, never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.

Over the years, I've tried showing a few people how to do a trick, mostly because (I thought) they showed some interest, but then nothing happened. That's just how it goes. And over the years some people have tried showing me how to do this or that, or get interested in their favorite hobby, but nothing happened: I just didn't "see" it. That's what makes us different.

If the premise is true, that people make fun of magic and magicians, maybe that should be an eye-opener and not just a reason to take a defensive stance and the position that they are wrong in doing so.

If people make fun of magicians then all we can say is welcome to the club.

Part of the reason people make fun of magicians is that magic puts up a barrier between the performer and the spectator. You know the secret and they don't. A person makes fun of a magician if they don't care about them. Thus, as magicians we should strive to make the spectator care about us, not the secrets.

People make fun of everything. If somebody makes fun of something about you then they are attacking you for nothing really. When they attack, do not go into defence but attack them, which is the best defence. You are all here on the defence trying to explain the reason: which is agreeing with the attacker's point of view that there is a good reason for the attack. If someone makes fun of your big ears then make fun of their big nose. There is no good reason to make fun of magicians or anybody else.