Clay
Magic is just another one of the ills that are a pox on the world. Eating away at the status quo for some purported gain, or if nothing else, for the sake of its own existence, the only difference between magic and any of the plagues is that we haven't seen proof that it can propagate itself. The day that gets out, we'll probably see the last few reminders of civilization go right out the window... if the window's still even there.
At the core, magic is about cheating the system. It goes around conventions, making big, sweeping changes that are passed off as subtleties when they only are from the conventional perspective. Take a look at the larger, bigger pictures, though, and magic frequently winds up being a flashy, expensive, complicated way of convincing yourself you've taken a shortcut. By the time the final balance is calculated, though, the price... well, magic is weird by the very nature of the stuff, and the price of playing with fire is, inevitably, getting burned.
People who explain magic only help to spread the disease of easy hopes, of hope without respect for losses that have already been suffered and losses which may occur. Magic is the perfect expression of human avarice, but that doesn't stop people from deceiving themselves just like we've been doing with other, more conventional profits for years. Magic doesn't belong in this world, but that doesn't stop it from working.
Greg
For a bit, math people tried to work out a grand unified theory of everything. One equation, force, or energy that created the entire universe. These never panned out, and always uncovered some missing component like a ransacked jigsaw puzzle. The reason for this explains what magic is, how it works, and why Two forces animate this world. They are truth and irony. All that exists comes from some combination of these two forces...
Existence itself, what conventionally is, that's the truth of the matter as the saying goes. Simple or complex, it conforms to expectations and is everything we suspect it to be. Irony, on the other hand, is everything we imagine it to be... it isn't even really a tangible force so much as an energy, which is no matter... in both senses, if you're not paying attention to it.
Irony has a power of suggestion or negation. It's a very definite thing by definition, but in existence, is more malleable and even relative. We can use irony to bridge all the gaps truth presents.
Trafficking in the art is something like being a comedian, if magic is something like laughter. A joke is like a spell. There's lead-ins, punchlines, and there's always the hope that it'll be understood when you finish. Humor and irony are some of the largest insulators against the terrors of truth, and living a life of magic is about deciding to stare at the abyss and laugh when it stares back... and if you're lucky, it'll get the joke.
Lyn
Magic? Why is it that no one ever seems to ask about the important things first? Magic on its own, magic without the feelings, without the heart, it's like a house without any doors. There's just a shabby attempt at a purpose.
I haven't touched it in a long time, but when I first took up magic, it was only after knowing why I should use it, knowing how it would be used, and knowing that it was something I was meant to do. At least for a time. The ritual associated with it is a little surprising for someone who only knows about its power; it's strange to think that so many different outcomes come from the same general motions, words, and outfits.
We take up magic in order to rid the world of tragic malignancy. By filling our hearts with love and our souls with purpose, we can glow with a glory that once created worlds. The light and shadow we cast as a result is what magic is, and the challenge is to make sure you do not cast more shadows than you enlighten. Or, some would say, to be ready to glow brighter when that happens.
A lot of things can't tolerate magic, because of the impurity in the world. We can't help it that out of sin came knowledge, and out of knowledge came a lot of things that aren't necessarily sinful or bad... but the light can remember their heritage, and when we glow too brightly, it finds something to do if our purpose and desires aren't enough to keep it occupied.
Sophie
Once upon a time, stuff was pretty normal. You could guess how life would go. Heck, you could probably even make a bit of money betting on it. Destiny doesn't bother itself with being understandable, I guess, and so magic enters into whatever exists and sends it off in new, confusing directions.
Magic is the current that flows through the world, the stuff change, progress, all those words that kind of describe the fact that the universe is alive, gets made by. Without magic, nothing really has any real animation to it. Of course, with magic - and with too much magic - things just plain fly off the handle.
Magic can twist the present with little parlor tricks as easily as it can twist your actual existence. There's a moment that happens when you actually first realize that things aren't right and you're not sure if they're stable, where you kind of stop believing in everything, abandon all your principles, and invest every shred of will into scraping along whatever the world's inside of to try to cling to reality and existence. If you emerge, you'll emerge having flexed a muscle that most people never know exists. And if you did if well enough, you realize that maybe, just maybe... you could flex it again. By working on that one muscle, building its capacity and endurance, you can hone a certain strength. It almost makes everything else acceptable. For whatever's left in the gap, there's always a good drink.
