In the darkest hour under the morning sun, when the hiss of
air and the sound of feet echo through buildings, there is a magician at work.
He is quietly unfolding the blocks of a set. He dismantles the past in subtle
ways. He rearranges the blocks in new forms and then with the flash of his wand
makes it disappear. Poof!
All that has been, will have been, was and will ever be,
gone in the blink of an eye. This is the remarkable ability of the illusionist.
The masks he wears separate him from the crowd and yet he remains aloof,
unknown and unrecognized. He is the curator of the known facts and expresser of
them through his own interpretation. He is the presenter of clever words.
Imagine then a stage with lights focused on this illusionist
as he stands erect in the center. His arms unfolded and stretched out along his
sides, as he embarks on a tale. His power with words and use of timber, his
eloquence of speech and the fluidity in his motion, his sense of presence and
resonance with the audience all conspire to electrify the mind. He is the
magician, the talent, an obvious intellect, standing before the sea of
mediocrity. He has come to inform as he magically changes the background of
colorful slide that flicker behind him from one into another, morphing slowly
at a semi-glacial pace to evoke an emotional ah!
Yes! We have all come across them everywhere. They are
clever, these illusionists; they propel us from one medium into another and
compel us to think about real and time-honored confident things and with
blinding speed, just before the hour has struck, they change the complex
equation to confound the present by distancing from and making moot, the past.
You are involved, you are flying through the space, swimming
with the current, running with the pack and then just as easily, the
illusionist changes the pace and confounds. The space has friction, while the
current now suddenly flows against you and you have become mired in the morass
of the human pack.
Imagine!
You have experienced this. The counter flow of a
well-balanced argument that has sent you reeling in space and time. Confused
and debauched by the irreverence of the words that were so real, so natural, so
true and now this! Your mind starts to make concessions. It manipulates the
memories to coordinate with the new proposed concept by the illusionist. Your
mind strikes a balance with known facts and the sudden derailed concepts being
proposed and in the end it agrees with the final premise of the illusionist.
The now has overtaken and over processed to allow comprehension and a new false belief.
Yes he was right! You say.
Was he?
Here then is the ugly truth about the essence of the
well-dressed, well-spoken, articulate presenters. They have a purpose and
intent. Find out the meaning between the lines and derive your own conclusions.
There are many of such in the field of medicine. They grab
on to your psyche with the well-oiled stochastic versions of the truth and
morph it slightly to twist and turn until they have created a monster from the
beautiful statue of an angel.
The abrogation, it appears comes from the self-serving
monster of intent.
Allow me to present this brilliant piece of presentation on presentation. But the "catch-22" is subtle. The presenter begins with the cells and then delves deeper into their nuclei and from there into the atom and thence to "superfluid" properties and abruptly to humor the audience and lay the groundwork for his argument he turns to powerpoint presentations. Here, he now has already taken the leap of faith and found the audience with him, he adds conjecture and thence his political philosophy to a standing ovation. The audience will talk about it and will remember bits and pieces of the the earlier part of his talk as entropy dislodges them and the final version so embedded will remain that will regale the intent of his smooth talking antics. absolute brilliance to the unsuspecting eye and ear.
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Your title for this post caught my eye immediately. My Great Grandfather Dr. Samuel Hooker was an accomplished Scientist and a Magician. I was fortunate to see Dr. Hooker's "Impossibilities": performed in 2007 http://www.magician.org/portal/en/node/222
ReplyDeleteI remember watching this TED talk Dance vs. PowerPoint. I never could quite put my finger on the reason why I felt uncomfortable watching this presentation. Perhaps it could have been an occupational hazard because I design "high end" PowerPoint decks and know when they are well designed they can help create a memorable presentations.
I never understood the point the presenter was attempting to make and because I was neither emotionally nor intellectually moved I never thought to ask anyone. I'd love to know what point he was attempting to make.
Thank you,
Lisa