What's in a magical name?

Magical names and magical mottos are hard to settle on—it took me years of off-and-on searching and consideration to arrive at something. I want to talk a little about what that journey was like for me to discover my magical motto, which I hope functions as inspiration and yields insight to others who endeavor towards the same.

Re-reading the deeper part of my experience I wrote, I'm a bit self-conscious. This is very much a just-me thing, and I don't expect anyone to get it. If they do, great, hopefully it helps them; if they don't, just please don't be a jerk and criticize me over it? I'm taking a chance and sharing it because I think it's the best way to communicate what I have to say to get my point across. Anyway.

Magical names and mottos are similar but not quite the same. In addition, magical names can come in two flavors: names used in the magical community and names used as representing magical identities in workings. Sometimes these are the same thing. Magical mottos are usually not a single word but are full expressions that capture one's ideals and ambitions—and sometimes they get used as community names as well as magical identity-names.

To recap, here are three different kinds of names/mottos that may or may not overlap and some things to consider when choosing them:

1. Magical community names: consider how easy it is to say, how memorable it is, and if it captures how you want to be thought of in the community. This is a social name. I still go by my government name in the community because it's fairly unique, memorable, and it captures my identity well enough.
2. Magical working names: consider how you would want to be known to spiritual entities. Consider what you want your identity to be when you engage in magical operations, and what the spirit and flavor of that identity is like. For me, my normal name is fine; I don't see any reason to change it because I think entities are pretty well in my own head, at least partly, so it's not like they don't know who I am to begin with. Also, separating my identity into mundane and magical seems counterproductive when I'm trying to elevate myself and reach deeper forms of spiritual attainment as a whole person versus just one part of myself. It's like, sure, we wear different hats when we do magic and when we do taxes, but the hats all fit on the same head.
3. Magical mottos: to me, these are less names to go by in a context and more full statements/expressions of what you are about. You can abbreviate or create an initialism out of it to use as a magical working name or community name if you're so inclined or even use the full thing if it's concise enough. The big thing to consider is what are you working towards? What are your ideals? What do you want your life to be, magically speaking, in the grand scheme of things?

So yeah, what I settled on was my magical motto. I've played with other languages, gematria/isopsephy, symbolism, metaphor, adages, and so much trying to settle on one. Ultimately, what I really needed to do, though, was be honest with myself about my understanding of existence and how I want to fit into it.

To quote Bill Wurtz in the video history of the entire world i guess: "a long time ago, actually never, and also now, nothing is nowhere. when? never. makes sense right? like i said, it didn't happen. nothing was never anywhere. that's why it's been everywhere. it's been so everywhere you don't need a where. you don't even need a when. that's how every it gets."

So yeah, there was an ineffable, incomprehensible nothing—and then, somehow someway, there became the notion of there being something or not-nothing. Because it was possible to be something other than nothing, that possibility became (in the land of no-space no-time no-anything) something. Asking "why" to this, seeking some kind of purpose or function misses the point; it is because it can. Existence is an expression of possibility, chance, and all that could and can be across multiple dimensions.

In a way, existence is part of a conversation with the void of what could be if there weren't the void. We are the otherwise. We are living words, sentences, paragraphs, whole narratives that tell the void what could be if given a chance. If we are parts of a conversation with the void, some parts of the dialogue are quiet, others are loud.

I have struggled with nihilism a lot in the past, often because of existential despair and depression. Through wrestling with nihilism for the better part of my life and arriving at this understanding, I have come to understand my ideal: I want to scream into the void, and to echo for always.

In the end, my scream is as meaningless as a whisper; we only exist to each other, not the void. Nonetheless, I shout and yell. I do it for me. I do it because I recognize and see the beauty and horror in what we are, in what existence is. The entirety of it all is beyond my comprehension—even what I am bellowing against, as simple as it is, remains something no one can truly conceive. Still, I cry out because it matters more than anything to me—even if the void doesn't listen, I can hope in the face of futility and impossibility that one of existence's possibilities is it somehow does.

There is no reason for my voice; what I want to listen is always and never a thing that could listen.

And that's why I must scream until: I am echoing.