Back at the hospital for another change in medication for my stomach, since the last one didn't work. It is a pity I couldn't stay on the first, because it was working enough for my liking, but not for the doctor. If this one doesn't work, I will look to go back on the first again, because while the doctor might not be happy, it is about quality of life for me, not length of life. We'll see how this one goes.
It was Father's Day on the weekend and we went out for a brunch. I noticed a pack of tarot cards and a guide book sitting on the window sill next to us, so after ordering we did a reading. With Halloween discussions at school, they were talking about superstitions in a kind of philosophy life class (instead of her being in a religion class), and Smallsteps was interested. Especially, since they mentioned the number 13 and she is born on the thirteenth.
Suffice to say, I don't believe in any of this kind of thing at all, but that doesn't mean it isn't real. I don't mean that the cards tell past, present and future, but the suggestions they give can help people reflect and fit whatever is mentioned into their own story, and they can even make it "come to be" as they work toward completing the story.
Stories are powerful.
As when we have a story we connect with, that gives us some kind of meaning, we can use it to change our thinking and our behaviours. The reasons we have to do something are just stories we tell ourselves. For instance, while I have been trying to get my wife to eat more healthily and exercise regularly because it is good for her health, it is not a compelling enough story for her to do it consistently. However, now that she has a fancy event coming up, she now has a story that is strong enough for her to at least pay attention for the next month to what she eats and does. Of course, had she consistently been doing what is right for herself daily, she would always be ready in case something came up.
Doing the tarot reading can offer suggestions and if someone believes in the story enough and is able to keep it in their awareness, they might be able to use it to improve their lives. If for example the what was suggested was a positive outcome that required effort to achieve, it could be that the person puts in a little more effort, and is therefore more likely to get a positive outcome.
A self-fulfilling prophecy.
Cards are not needed, nor are palms or horoscopes, because we are all storytellers with the ability to weave a tale that works to activate ourselves. The problem is, very few of us do this, and instead consume the stories fed to us, which largely keep us passive, seated, and restrained. To activate us, the story doesn't have to be very elaborate, it just needs to motivate us to do what is necessary, to push through whatever difficulty is blocking our way, and get the job done. It is easy when "the job" is pleasant, but when it is not or requires a lot of effort or time, we need a stronger reasoning.
Think about the mothers who inexplicably can lift a car off their trapped child with superhuman strength that they cannot replicate. And then recognise that in order to be able to do that, they had a very strong story to motivate them. They didn't have to create the story, it came to them in an instant and they became single-minded in completing the task required. They were living fully in the moment.
Technically, they should be able to repeat the feat again, but it is highly unlikely they will ever be able to, because the story will not be as strong, and they will not be able to reclaim that moment. People talk about "living in the moment" more, but what most people don't recognise with this (even though they think they are in the moment) is that if they were truly living in the moment, they would be maximising their potential all of the time. Or at least, have access to their full potential and be able to fit it fully to the conditions at hand. Instead, what people are doing "in the moment" for the most part, is more observational and thought based - they are in their head, evaluating their surrounding, not living their potential.
While our thoughts are important for our experience and our ability to prepare for the future, living the moment means being able to use all of our available tools effectively. We are much more than our thoughts, and a huge amount more than our emotions. Yet for the most part, we have become largely inactive. We think we are doing something, even though we are sitting around doing very little. I believe that this is a big part of why we are rapidly turning into a lump of collective lard. Because we feel that we are doing, and our thoughts evaluate the feeling as positive action, even if we aren't doing anything of consequence at all.
In the past, on order to survive, we had to do things to have shelter and food, and it is likely that much of our thoughts and feelings were aligned with the need to survive. Even when we would get philosophical, innovative, or spiritual, our thoughts and therefore our stories, were aligned with survival. Our superstitions surrounded doing what was needed for quality of life, whether it be sacrificing a lamb to the gods for a good crop, or praying to a fertility statue in the hope of getting pregnant. We would examine life to make it a life worth living.
Yet today, how much of our personal energy is directed toward examining a life in order to make a life worth living, and how much is spent on entertaining thoughts that distract us from thinking about what is needed for a good life? I suspect that most of us spend little time building the stories we need to create a good life, but a great deal of time with distractions, entertainment, and avoidance thoughts. They still provide story collateral, but it is rarely of the kind that inspires action on our part to improve ourselves.
While I sit here in the hospital café writing about this, I look out at those sitting here with 90% of them sitting on their phones, staring with a frown on their face. The two phones I see, one is reading a low-quality news service, the other is scrolling images on social media. And I think that this is what society has become now; consumers of stories that don't help us use our potential. The stories might make us feel something, or think something, but they are not compelling enough to get us to do something.
Life is in the being, the doing, the loving.
The action to be, to do, to love. It is about movement. Life cannot be passively lived, but it can be passively passed. We can all sit and do nothing, with tubes in us, asleep and technically, we would be alive, with thoughts and feelings. but is it living? And if we are not living the life we want, no amount of thought or feeling is going to change that, but we can use these tools to create a story that we are willing to act upon.
A story needn't be factual, to create reality.
Lies that motivate us to do nothing.
We consume them every day.
Time for a new story to live toward?
Taraz
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I recently did a tarot reading for someone as well, who I barely knew the personal life of, and all the cards were accurate AF. Too accurate that he confirmed all of them in details which I also knew nothing about, and that if these cards show up in my reading, it wouldn't make sense. I don't believe in it 100% yet, but these are times when I think I should maybe consider lol. But I mean I own tarot cards so that should also mean that I believe in it somehow haha.
I think nobody is out there living their potential yet. As much as I want to do that as well, it's just not possible. It is true that we can do things we can imagine of doing (maybe not time traveling yet) but there's only 24h in a day that we have to choose what matters more and prioritize something over another. At least that would be the literal definition of living your potential for me.
Living potential = Allowing yourself to be something. I'd like to think that way instead of thinking what I could become. Giving your attention to something that shouldn't matter and doesn't help your goals (like scrolling on phone) stops you from that.
I'd rather not keep on thinking about potential though, it feels like you're gonna chase something that isn't there and you're gonna get trapped into a lot of what ifs.
But also, what is the language on the card? The card on the right says "makeup artist" if translated from Finnish Nevermind I apparently misspelled it and I was so confused why the card would mean makeup artist LOL
Well, this is telling... :D
I wonder if you were not reading and got the cards given to you, if you would have found a way to fit them into your own life?
When it comes to the potential, I think it is potential in the moment and I guess "full potential" is making a perfect decision on what to do at that moment, and doing it. Imagine if your life was filled with perfect decisions on everything all the way through. What would that look like?
I think the becoming something is the same as being something. To become means to continuously be. If we decide what we want to be and then work out what we need to do now, doing that thing means we become that thing also. And this way, time isn't spent thinking of potential, it is spent doing things- The journey, not the outcome.
lol... makeup artist card. That would be something.
Very impossible, it talked about a business and I don't have a business haha. So it really wouldn't fit me at all even if let's say it wasn't about specifically a business. As a skeptic I also did look at other possibilities that it can be broad too and applies to everyone but it really wouldn't make sense for me.
Ah true, I kept thinking about the future tense when thinking about potential.
I probably spend more time on my phone than I should, but I feel like I laugh more than anything. I don't know if that is a good thing. It's usually my wife who wants to know why I am laughing and I tell her I just saw something funny on HIVE or Discord. I hope they get your meds worked out and it doesn't have too negative of an impact on you.
When you are out and about, take note of the faces of people scrolling their phone, especially when they think someone might see them. They tend to frown or have a neutral face, as if what they are doing is important.
Okay, will do! I probably do the same thing myself though.
First of all, wishing you speedy recovery. For the medicine part, I believe in herbal-medicine more than the pharmaceutical one. Although, it is bit extra time consuming and may not have significant impact, but still, it is way more futuristic and long-term solution without much side effects.
Secondly, if someone hears “you will soon find success if you stay focused,” they might actually start working harder, not because the cards predicted it, but because they believed in that story enough to make it real. So yeah, it’s less about fortune telling and more about psychology. The mind loves having a narrative to follow, and that can seriously change behavior.
Thirdly, contrary to this viewpoint, internal motivation, which I believe, is the driving force in our lives which most people neglect, or at least do not care to realize. We are so much surrounded by imaginative theories or things that we think external motivation will help us out. But, it is just a like pump one gets after a power set in the gym which will just loosen up after some time. The real change takes time, consistency and dedication. The sources may vary — motivational songs, stories, influencers, speakers — but the end result is same.
Though, I'm a student of literature and I love to read a lot of fictional novels, plus I get too attached with the characters. Still, there is a force inside me which keeps me completely aligned with reality at the same time. I just want to be 'ME', not any character from the movie or the story, but yes I won't mind some pieces of them in me.
I started on Chinese herbal medicines about 30 years ago, but they didn't help. Acupuncture too. And a million other things. They have their place, but not sure how effective they are with a lot of the chronic illnesses.
Which is why the fortune tellers are very good cold readers. They can see what kind of things the person will likely be into or connect with, and then they weave a story to fit.
And this is why it is so important to "choose our heroes" well. The role models (and people in general) we surround ourselves with will influence us. But we will most likely take on the easiest of their traits, which tend to be the bad ones, or the ones that don't lead to the same kind of change. For instance, a lot of wealthy people wake up early, so waking up early might seem a good thing to change, but that isn't the key thing they are doing to be wealthy.
I think there's a tendency in recent years to over-examine what is needed for a life worth living, and fall into a race of constant and endless self-improvement that might prove foolhardy at some point. Not to say that wasting your energy on distraction and lies is in any way preferable. There is immense power in a story, including (I think) in illness, and the story you tell yourself about what is happening to you.
I think tarot helps you flesh out something pre-existing in you. You ask about a romantic relationship - of course the cards won't tell you this or that. But they will give you hints. If there's any value to be found in these kinds of pastimes, it's in the interpretation and what it tells you about your own subconscious, I believe, rather than in magic supernatural powers speaking to you from the beyond.
I agree with you, because it rarely leads to action. It becomes another hurdle to overcome, thinking to delay doing. Examining and evaluating everything just isn't practical or time effective, so most people then end up examining and focusing on what is easy to focus on, and it leads them to labelling themselves something to explain their weaknesses and incapabilities, rather than finding ways to overcome them.
Yep. The interpretation matters a lot. It is like the understanding of a painting, it can tell one viewer one thing, another something quite different and a third who sees it, effectively scrolls past it, understanding nothing more at all.
Everyone and their dogs had a better story than bran the broken.I don't believe in any gods/heaven/ hell/ soul/ after life. Even if I would believe in gods I would not worship them. Instead at most I would look at those beings as my friends. I would offer them no sacrifices or prayers. Just talk to them as equals. just like I would speak with a human friend or a dog friend. I believe that gods would appreciate that more than bribery and mock humility(because it seems that many people worship god(s) just to get in good graces. the way I see it their believe in god is false . They just hope to go to heaven if they will praise god enough.)
I find it interesting when people who believe their god is all-knowing and all-powerful, thinks they can trick the god to get into heaven. For instance, in a lot of catholic countries suicide is not usually mentioned on the death certificate, because it is a sin and means the person won't go to heaven. God tricked!
I think that if god is all-knowing and all-powerful he is the biggest(and only true) sinner of all time and he alone deserves to be in hell for all the eternity. Planting a tree knowing that humans will eat it's fruit? check. Punishing those humans(and their descendants) for eating that fruit? check. killing...everyone who has ever lived and will ever live? check. Letting all the wars, murders and rapes happen? check. And yet he is a somehow considered to be a good guy?
Ah, but he made hell too, so he can occupy both realms simultaneously, to punish for eternity also. All bases covered.
For me heaven and hell sound identical. in one of them I would be tortured forever in flames...in other I would be tortured forever by being forced to sing praises to god. (I assume) no sex, no basketball, movies, games, sweets just endless repeating of the same praises... For a first ten minutes that may be better than burning in hell but after that not so much. In the words of one of my favorite manga characters Guts:
"If you see god, you tell him this: LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE!"
I visited the hospital thrice last month and the medications that was prescribed on each occasion worsened my condition instead of helping. One of the medications almost caused me kidney complications. I wonder what some doctors are thinking when making prescriptions.
Humans are always motivated by stories that talk about the ideal kind of person they want to be or an ideal situation they want to be in, whether the story is fictional or real. Reading such stories now and again can keep us motivated enough to do the right things to better our lives.
The thing is that we have to be choosey about what stories we read because some of them out there either motivate us to the wrong things or make us do nothing at all. And if we don't find a good story we can always create our own.
I believe that most of the moral decadence in the society can be attributed to the wrong tales woven by the cinema industry. They tell about overnight riches, crime, and all sorts of vices. I'm sure if they portrayed more of moral values the world would have been markedly different.
Feeling better now?
But the motivation has to become action, not just mental and emotional movement. Without action, what is the point?
Most of the stories seem to be to drive consumerism. The action is to buy something that makes us feel better, or think we are better, even though we ourselves haven't changed. It is like clothes that make someone look slimmer, rather than the action to become slimmer and look better naked.
This really made me think about how much of life we spend reacting instead of truly living. I like the idea that story drives our actions. It is so true that when we are with it, that's meaningful. We naturally want to put more effort. But maybe the real challenge is to try to write this our own story instead of letting the world etermine what is good for us.
I hope your new medication works better this time.
I see it a bit like being chased by a hungry lion, are we running toward something of our own volition, or away from something because we are forced? The reaction to the world we are fed through consumption ends up that we are led by those who benefit from leading us, even if it is a cost to our own experience.
When we write our own story, we get to choose our direction, rather than having it chosen by the hungry lion.
Even if someone doesn't believe in the supernatural, the perspectives it provides might help us in crafting our stories and inspiring change.
For sure. A superhero movie can inspire someone to be better, or worse as the case may be.
Stories shape us more than facts ever could—when a narrative moves us to act, that’s when it becomes real life.
The fact is that smoking is very bad for you and will shorten your life and reduce the quality. Not a compelling enough story for most people to stop, but compelling enough for many to try to stop. A better story is needed.
First of all, wishing you speedy recovery. For the medicine part, I believe in herbal-medicine more than the pharmaceutical one. Although, it is bit extra time consuming and may not have significant impact, but still, it is way more futuristic and long-term solution without much side effects.
Secondly, if someone hears “you will soon find success if you stay focused,” they might actually start working harder, not because the cards predicted it, but because they believed in that story enough to make it real. So yeah, it’s less about fortune telling and more about psychology. The mind loves having a narrative to follow, and that can seriously change behavior.
Thirdly, contrary to this viewpoint, internal motivation, which I believe, is the driving force in our lives which most people neglect, or at least do not care to realize. We are so much surrounded by imaginative theories or things that we think external motivation will help us out. But, it is just a like pump one gets after a power set in the gym which will just loosen up after some time. The real change takes time, consistency and dedication. The sources may vary — motivational songs, stories, influencers, speakers — but the end result is same.
Though, I'm a student of literature and I love to read a lot of fictional novels, plus I get too attached with the characters. Still, there is a force inside me which keeps me completely aligned with reality at the same time. I just want to be 'ME', not any character from the movie or the story, but yes I won't mind some pieces of them in me.
Never done any tarot reading and I also do not believe in all this but I agree that it is a "science" taking it seriously and some people may find it helpful when done by a serious professional.
We are complex beings, transcending mere thought and fleeting emotions. These are only tools, not our essence. To achieve our dreams, it is not enough to wish or feel; we must act. Life demands active participation, constant effort, and the will to build our own destiny.
I hope you soon find the right medicine or therapy for your stomach problems. A hug full of blessings for Smallsteps.
who need those CAROT cards??
hope u get ur meds figured out.. I was on 1 for a LONG time (since i was 16) and then it started to affect my liver, so my dr said i will just stop taking any.. i was good for a few weeks, then hit a deep depression that lasted about 6 months. I finally got stable on a different med now. :)
I once heard that words are the strongest weapon, stronger than any weapon man can create. Even when a person is in the abyss, the right words are enough to change everything, even to motivate someone who had no intention of trying. The greatest orators have known how to convey a feeling so that it reaches millions. I liked your example with your wife; let's hope the new medicine works better.
!PIZZA
$PIZZA slices delivered:
@daddydog(1/5) tipped @tarazkp
Come get MOONed!
When I have had my cards read, I benefitted from the different perspective I then looked at the situation. I don't remember anything having come true or not. But it put my head on crooked, which was helpful.
I have never known a doctor to change a med that was having significant benefit, but not enough of a benefit.
This is distressing to me. Everyone, gradually, is coming to think exactly alike. No more magazines in waiting rooms - I have to remember to bring a book to appointments. In this hillbilly town there are reading materials in many places, but they are usually about firearms and hunting. Which are interesting, and get me out of my everyday thinking mode. No phone will do that for someone.
It is not just stories, give people something to believe in and they will accomplish that. Believing in something is the biggest part of being able to achieve it. I don't know if you ever fought in the ring, but when you come out there most of the time the fight is over before it even starts. Both opponents are usually approximately equal in skill, strength, speed and everything that matters from a technical standpoint, but the one that believe he will win usually does and especially if one doesn't believe it he will most likely loose. I saw it in my opponent eyes many times and they lost before the fight even started...
So yeah, pick a story and you have to believe in it and believe that you can achieve it, otherwise much harder to get there...