INSIDIOUS IMPOSTORS

One of the Chapters in Douglas Couplans novel Generation X is titled “Adventure Without Risk Is Disneyland“. It is a phrase that has stuck with me. Amusement Parks are designed to give thrills that approximate the excitement of life and death experiences with none of the risk (unless, like me, you were at Action Park in the 80s). They are fun, and even fulfilling in a way, and yet…. they fall short of what happens when you really face adventures with consequences. The growth that you get from triumphing (or merely surviving) a real adventure creates skills and deveopments in your personality that you simply cannot get on “Steel Vengeance”.

So the amusement park is an obvious impostor, but one we KNOW is an impostor, so its ok.

There are other impostors that fill our lives though that are more insidious. Not only are they not the real thing, but actually fool us into thinking that they are, therefore keeping the real thing just out of reach. When you start looking for them, they are everywhere.

BUSYNESS: I have read that busyness is the enemy of productivity. It’s true too. I catch myself in this all the time. I can busy myself with 1000 small, unchallenging, and fairly meaningless tasks every day that will not actually produce anything worthwhile other than keeping the status quo. They will make me FEEL incredibly productive without actually being so. But its hard to catch, because, well, busyness is an insidious impostor.

INFORMATION: Given the resources at our disposal, our citizenry should be the most informed in human history, but we aren’t. Instead of cultivating solid sources, going to them daily, then moving on, we instead immerse ourselves in 24 hour streams of information that bombard us with what we already know and what we altready think. Its like disneyland. It feels like we are being informed because we are spending an innordinate amount or time in this info stream, but we aren’t. None of it is challenging views, or engaging in change, its all just designed to grab attention and hold it.

PLANS AND PURCHASES: You said you want to start running, or to learn French, or to get serious about photography. So we start with research. Articles, video’s, reviews, books, etc etc. In an age where you have instant and free access to every publication in the world, the world will produce stuff to read faster tghan you can read it. Same with stuff to buy. Planning to do something, and buying stuff to do something are not doing something, but it feels like it is.

MAGIC: Oh, this is big for us folks. I know a few people who spend so much time talking about magic online that they never get around to doing any! You can be a Witch on video, and never cast a spell. You can be a high degree in a Magical Order and literally never do a ritual. After all, who has time for Sorcery when you are busy making video’s, commenting on posts, and arranging the hotel accomodations for the next convention?

One common feature of insidious impostors is that the lyrics of their siren song is always one word : MORE. They mutiply and fill all available time and space. They are the empty calories in the diet of life.

So what’s the solution? LESS

The first step when you find yourself falling prey to these insidious impostors is to embrace LESS. When you find youself dominated by these impostors, Immediately stop what you are doing or do it as minimally as you can. Stop busying yourself with the emails, and meetings, posting. Stop clicking and clicking on the articles that make you angrier and appalled. Stop grabbing book after book and take a break from the magical discussions. Just stop.

Know what happens when water is allowed to remain still for a bit? It gets clear.

What this clarity reveals is that you have a lot more time than you think you do, and these insidious impostors have been eating it all up. You can probably be just as producive in half the time as you were spending, just as inormed with 20 minutes of deliberate daily infomation gathering, and even more profoundly proficient at magic withoit the endless debates and discussion and yes, evem the newest and latest books.

25 years ago I conjured Astaroth and asked her to make me wealthy enough that I didn’t have to work, because work was the reason I couldn’t do the things I really wanted to do. Astaroth pointed out that I was working 40 hours a week at the time, leaving 128 hours in the week. Even if I subtracted 8 hours of sleep that left 72 Hours that were mine every week. I looked at them and that is when I first noticed the insidious impostors that were eating away my life for the first time.

Right now, people tend to think I am busyer than I actually am. The truth is that I am not swamped and not overwhelmed with anything. I say no to most things and refuse to get bogged down in every last thing people want from me. I allot time not just for work, but for free time with the kids, with my wife, and with nature, and most importantly with the spirits. As a teacher of magic, it is absolutely vital that I not let my teaching of magic overshadow my actual practice.

You can have more time to rest, more time to enjoy, more time to love or even piss away  and STILL be more informed, adventurous, producive, and magic.