Your Water

A connection between world-class magic, better computers, and childhood grades.

Dani DaOrtiz is arguably the best living card magician.

He works for magicians, and surrounds himself almost exclusively with magicians.

When Dani was very young, he got to see another legendary magician, Juan Tamariz, perform live. After the performance, Juan had a ritual of sticking around until the early hours of the morning just to perform for other magicians. From the time he was a young kid, Dani was one of those who stuck around with Juan until the early hours. To Dani, this is just what magicians did.

Now, more than 40 years later, Dani has built a house in his hometown of Estepona (Spain), exclusively for magicians to live in while they practice their craft alongside him.

Surrounding himself with magicians from a young age, was simply the water Dani swam in. He still does.

***

I’ve mentioned my recent and growing fascination with Anjan Katta before. He is the CEO of a new computing company called Daylight.

In a profile I read about him recently, he mentions that Daylight isn’t a company focused on product design, it’s focused on environment design. He wants to be a part of creating the environments that enable you to be the best version of yourself.

According to the profile, Anjan’s home has no overhead lights.

He likes to wrap himself in blankets at nighttime because they put his nervous system into a calmer place. He has a projector that casts grainy constellations of stars across his ceiling. He is designing the type of environment that he wants to imbue in his company’s products.

Environment design is the water than Anjan swims in.

***

I often find myself falling into the comparison trap. It’s awfully magnetic for some reason.

When I was growing up in Sri Lanka, I can’t recall exactly at what grade this started, but for as long as I can remember, each person in our class was ranked. Out loud.

What this meant was, a few times each year after an exam period, students in the class would be ranked according to the grades they received. There would be a single ranking order, we weren’t ranked according to each subject—at least that’s what I remember. These rankings were then read out loud to the entire class, from first to last.

I was never top of the class and I have been thinking back to that time recently for several reasons. I may write about a few of them some other time, but for the purpose of this post, I’ve realized that being compared to others was part of the water I swam in for a long time.

***

What’s your water?