One degree
Making even little changes can change everything.
I begin today with a riddle:
What did the Zen master say to the hot dog vendor?
“Make me one with everything.”
So the hot dog vendor hands the Zen master his hot dog and the Zen master hands him a $20 bill, which the vendor pockets and goes back to his work.
The Zen master asks, “But where is my change?”
“Ah,” the hot dog vendor smiles. “Change must come from within.”
Yes, it’s a joke, but I have to admit, the hot dog vendor has a point. Change, honest-to-goodness, deep-down-to-our-core change, often does come from within. Even if we are changed by a life event or a sudden turn of bad luck or good luck, the person we evolve into after often results from something shifting inside. We have had, quite literally, a change of heart.
We don’t always have to wait for life events to change us, however. Nor—or at least it seems to me—would we want to. If you are like me, you rise many mornings wishing to improve yourself or your life and thinking what you might do this day to further that little mission along. (Of course, there are some days when just getting through is a victory, but a victory nonetheless.)
As a magician, one of my first thoughts each day is whether I will have any time to improve my magic, whether that means studying theory, learning a new effect or practicing an old one, or simply drilling on sleight of hand or other techniques. As in life itself, in magic there are endless choices of what to pursue, and, just like life, the dizzying array of options spread before me can feel overwhelming. Where do I even begin? Do I work on that four-coin routine I flubbed the last time I performed it, or do I grab my chain saw and go repair the apple tree in our yard that got damaged during the final winter storm? What is my first next step on the road to salvation?
In conjuror’s magic there is a principle called one degree. Oh, I’m sure the principle is ancient and has roots elsewhere, but the magic world is where I first came upon it. I’ll let magician John Guastaferro, author of the magic book One Degree, introduce the concept:
“It’s about making small, intentional improvements to create powerful outcomes …. While the approach of any young magician might be to make massive changes to achieve massive results, I believe that the extraordinary is closer than we think. Just one degree away.”
Guastaferro then offers a perfect illustration:
“If you heat water to 211 [degrees Fahrenheit], nothing extraordinary happens. But heat it just one degree more and you’ll bring it to the boiling point. Just one degree makes the difference between a lifeless puddle of water and a stirring pool of power and possibilities. It’s almost magical to see how just one degree of change can take things to a transcendental level.”
For magicians, the incremental changes Guastaferro refers to are as simple as waiting an extra second before revealing a spectator’s chosen card. Adding a single word to what we say while turning a one dollar bill into a one hundred dollar bill. Turning slightly to our left while making two solid steel rings pass through each other so the audience can get a more mystifying view. As simple as these changes sound, I can tell you from experience that they can amplify the power of a magical effect.
Another illustration of this concept that I find very convincing is the difference between a perfectly level surface and one that slants by just one degree. If you set a billiard ball on a perfectly level table, it stays where you put it. If that table is off by just one degree, that ball is going to roll away and fall to the floor with a thud.
The importance of a perfectly level surface was brought home to me five years ago when I made myself a levitating plant as featured in Make: magazine. The plant sits in an empty beer can that turns as it floats.
After I made one, I was disappointed that the can/planter would only spin for a while—a long while, but it would always eventually slow down and stop. After weeks of watching and wondering, I finally grabbed a level and made some adjustments. These days, when the contraption sits on a perfectly level surface, as in the video below, I give it it one gentle spin and it will continue to turn indefinitely, a perpetual motion machine.
Just one degree of change can also make a huge difference for the perpetual emotion machine known as the human heart. In these past few weeks, several people in my life have been suffering, physically and emotionally, and perhaps because I love them and care about them deeply, I found myself absorbing some of the anguish I felt floating between us. It was the minister side of me stepping forward, the empathizer, maybe also the wishful thinker believing that I could take away some of the pain by taking it on myself.
The result was helpful to no one—I simply started to feel some of the despair I was witnessing and it was causing me to view my own circumstances as more challenging than they really are, my own luck as not as good as it really is, and my ability to help my loved ones somewhat weakened.
Then, a few mornings ago, I called up my magician side to see if it could help out the suffering servant-minister side. (My sides help each other out a lot.) I was getting ready to take a shower and I said to myself, “Just one degree—that’s the goal.” The hot spray of the shower, the aromatherapy of the shampoo and body wash and a good morning shave combined to add up to a single degree of change, just one degree of better, and it was enough. My attitude shifted, my optimism started to return, and, coincidentally or not, circumstances for the loved ones I was aching over seemed to improve over the next few days as well.
Did everything really get better—or did I simply level the holy ground I am always walking upon? One degree off doesn’t have to mean everything goes crashing to the ground; the roll is slow and you have time to catch things, or loved ones, before they fall. But one degree back toward the love that is always calling us, holding us—well, that could hold things still long enough to realize we were never that far off to begin with. Like the magician said, the extraordinary is always closer than we think.