Don’t Touch Me, Man! (Tag Part 1)

By Duane Sharrock

J.K. Rowling, the writer of the Harry Potter series, is quoted saying: “We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all of the power we need inside ourselves already.”

This is an inspiring quote, especially if taken to mean that people can imagine great things and can work to make imaginings real. They can realize their dreams.

After all, our most incredible inventions each began in a person’s mind. Others have come along and improved on those inventions--increasing power, speed, versatility, even ease of use. Communication and actions brought these imagined machines into reality. We have done, and can do, so much without magic.

But there is another interpretation: We don’t need magic, but magic is real.

As adults, we often glamorize childhood. Childhood is a magical time in our lives because magic isn’t questioned; it simply is. There are a number of glimpses into this world where words can change perceptions and experiences, but the incredible feats of magic are in the sharing of imagined objects, making them real, not just for the creator but for others as well. People can sometimes dismiss the creativity involved.

In the story IT by Stephen King, IT is a monster that can take the form of our nightmares. It feeds on fear. Somehow fear strengthens it. It often took the name Pennywise.

Childhood, childlike creativity could fight this corruption and evil though. You see this when the group of kids fight Pennywise and you see it again when the adults use the magic of childhood to fight Pennywise.

The magic was very specific. It was the magic of the transformation spell. This is something a lot of kids have, and as kids, we cast this spell when we used a clothespin to attach a playing card against our bicycle spokes to make bikes into motorcycles. We did it when we made a stick into a gun to play cops and robbers. Magic is simple when we are kids. All you need is the words and a certain amount of charisma.

Adults have words for this kind of magic. It is called transformation magic. Transformation magic is cast using two or three of these three things: ideasthesia, speech acts,  with charisma and gravitas.

Do You Feel Me?

“Ideasthesia (alternative spelling ideaesthesia) is defined as a phenomenon in which activations of concepts evoke perception-like experiences” as ideasthesia is defined in Wikipedia.  A person can experience ideasthesia when a person feels, hears, tastes, and sees ideas. People are familiar with ideasthesia. Ideasthesia is evident when an object is shifted from one category, rank or class to another. Some of us can also experience ideasthesia when speech acts are involved, like, when someone begins the playing of tag by saying, “You’re it.” Don’t believe me? You just need to think back to your most special moments.

Social assertiveness is recognized as charisma and when a person speaks with gravitas. Charisma and gravitas are each social perceived. Basically, people “carry” themselves in a certain way and they can speak in a certain way. They appear to have a certain special status and communicate in ways that give words power. When people study leadership, researchers often explore charisma and gravitas as special kinds of communication.

Sometimes, gravitas is carried by what is said during a special kind of circumstance.

Now You’re Like Me

Speech acts are words that do multiple jobs. They are words that convey meaning but they also perform actions. They don’t just shift something from one category or class to another (which is powerful in itself!); speech acts also imbue meaning and can transform something into that object by simultaneously claiming and asserting that this new object contains or embodies a number of new rules, aesthetics, purposes, duties and commitments as a result of the shift into a different category.

For example, in a wedding ceremony, much of the ceremony leading up to the speech act provides an origin of the act, a purpose of the act, its importance to the community in a story. Appreciation is explored, and it explains why there are these purposes, duties, obligations and commitments packed into this new thing you are becoming. By the time the speech act is ready to be performed, this list is also ready. These will be your new characteristics and goals. This is what you will aspire to being. So, all of this will be so, after you have agreed to--or have accepted the imposition of-- these new aspects of your identity when you say, “I do”. And the speech act is pronounced.  

In A WAY WITH WORDS: WRITING, RHETORIC, AND THE ART OF PERSUASION of The Modern Scholar series, Professor Drout explains speech acts, also known as “performative language”. “When the minister says “I now pronounce you man and wife,” something changes in the world. From that moment on John and Susan really are married. Likewise, when the umpire says “You’re out!,” the runner really is out, with all the consequences for him, and the game, that that entails. The minister and the umpire have changed the world through their speech. Austin calls this kind of speech “performative.” The person who uses a performative does something as well as says something.”

Kids use speech acts when playing. Here is the list of some of the words imbued with speech act power they may use during play:

• You're it.
• Okay
• I Call (or I called it!)
• Not cool
• You can’t do that!

On the playgrounds most kids hold the same status, so, being the first to make a rule or start the playact holds sway. “I said it first,” means that a certain rule is in use, not other rules. Saying it first is preemptive and preeminent.  The argument can be settled by simple agreement that it WAS “said first.”

It is important to note the “I said it first” rule can be overruled if a majority of players really don’t want to play using that rule. Saying, “I’m not playing then” may open negotiations for the establishing of rules the others can agree on, or the game is simply abandoned.

Abandoning the game is a DEFCON 1 move though.

Of all the childhood games being played, few people would ask “What is tag?” Most know the game even if they don’t call it tag and might instead call it a “chasing game.” But what might get overlooked is that the game of tag requires creativity and requires an engaged imagination. This suggests that a real appreciation of tag depends on an aspect of ideasthesia.

The universality of tag suggests a common experience of ideasthesia in different ways. With calling a person “it,” that person is now infected with an imaginary contagion. It is also a burden that you must pass to someone else in order to be relieved of it.

In tag, there is always someone who is “it.” “It” is their status in the game. But there are lots of playground games that require that someone takes on the status of being “it.” This contagion of status is transmitted by touch.  

(Continued in Is You It or Is You Ain’t (my baby)