My First Tarot Reading
Today I had a Tarot reading done at work by my friend and co-worker, Angie. She just got a deck as a gift and we had a snowy day with nothing to do, so she read my cards. I’d never had one done before but it was a pretty cool experience, and the reading I got seemed pretty relevant to my life right now. I had to shuffle the deck with a clear head and break it into four piles. The photo shows the cards that came up on top of each pile: Justice, The Sun, the 4 of wands, and the 9 of swords. The first card I think was supposed to represent the main subject/problem of the reading, the second and third food for thought about the problem, and the fourth the solution. The first card, Justice apparently represents objective and rational thinking, and as a problem can be interpreted as bureaucratic struggle or intellectual conflict. Based on this card, Angie advised me to seek the council of elders and to do healthy things, both physically and spiritually. The Sun card linked personal growth to self expression, enthusiasm, and self-assurance, and the the 4 of wands advised against getting stuck in old patterns of behavior. The 9 of swords suggested that the answer involves depression and self doubt, meaning perhaps that I should be aware of these obstacles and not lose focus.
I found these cards very interesting. I immediately connected the first to my ongoing struggle to finish college and the difficulties I have with concentration and time management. I have a great desire to express myself (both academically at school, and otherwise – through music, photography, and other projects) but often find myself very unproductive, and have difficulty getting things done at all without approaching deadlines, and even then don’t always finish them on time. At school, this often results in me feeling quite overwhelmed and sometimes depressed.
The cards interestingly seem to reiterate the things that I know I need to change in my life. I need to avoid my habit of procrastinating, and be more assertive and self-assured. I’ve been meaning to take on new projects – like yoga, bass lessons, building a coffee table, etc. – and I need to just suck it up and go for it. The bit I found especially intriguing was the fact that the depression card was “the answer.” This, combined with the advice to seek the advice of elders also plays into a thought I have had about a possible action I could take. My grandmother is a Jungian analyst, and I have thought of asking her to refer me to another analyst for counseling. I have heard that counseling (and Jungian analysis in particular) can be a very fulfilling and illuminating experience, and I think it might be of great help to me, both pragmatically and spiritually. So, I think I am going to try and get rolling on some of the things I’ve been meaning to do, try to stay optimistic and productive, and I’ll shoot my grandma an email about an analyst.
Day 7 – Do you want to get married and/or have kids?
I don’t care if I get married. I wouldn’t mind it, nor would I be upset if it didn’t happen. I do care about having a meaningful relationship (which I happily already have! – Christie and I are pretty much functionally married already). I would like to have a wedding though, whether or not it is official. Weddings are fun.
I do want to have kids. I think I’d make a damn good dad, and I feel like having kids is an experience I wouldn’t want to miss out on. I also might like to adopt a kid (in addition to a child of my own). I’d feel guilty adding new people to an already overpopulated earth, especially when there are already so many kids on it that need help and love, and adoption could present a partial solution to this problem.
Day 6 – What are your views on love? Do you think it’s real? Do you think we only experience one love per lifetime? Does everyone have a soul mate?
This is a strange question to me. I think we all (or most of us, at least) have feelings for other beings, some of which we identify as love, and these feelings are real, to the extent that any feelings are. I do not, however, think that love exists in and of itself as some kind of platonic form or whatever. That said, I think that the feeling of love is a very powerful and unique force with great transformative potential, and one that we could definitely do with more of in the world.
As for the bit about one love per lifetime: I don’t believe in predetermined soul mates. I think that the potential for love – romantic or not – exists between any two people (or combination of people, for that matter), and whether that potential is realized depends on infinite chance happenings, the choices we make, and our ideas about ourselves and others. I also see no reason to believe that we cannot love more than one person simultaneously. I would say that I love hundreds of people, each to different extent (I don’t like the idea of measuring love quantitatively, but I can’t think of a better word here) and expressed in a different way. I’d also say that I love all people, but in a general sense, as I obviously haven’t met everybody and cannot feel specific feelings toward everyone.
Day 5 – Do you think sex before marriage is okay?
Yes, I think sex before marriage is perfectly fine. I don’t really care much about marriage, and I think that sex is just one facet of human interaction. It can be powerful and special, yes, but I don’t think it is fundamentally different than shaking someone’s hand, having a conversation, or making out, and it is certainly not as evil or dangerous as some people make it seem. It can definitely be very meaningful, but I don’t think that the act itself inherently carries any one particular meaning. We are animals and animals have sex. What we make of it is up to us.
Day 4 – What is your view on gay marriage?
I think anybody should be allowed to get married to anybody else. In my opinion, the real problem in this issue is that our idea of marriage itself is kind of confused; marriage as a legal entity is too tangled up with the Christian idea of marriage. Legally, there is absolutely no reason to continue denying a right that we claim is basic to our society to some citizens, and pretty much the only opposition to legalizing it is coming from a religious perspective. How particular religious institutions choose to interpret their scriptures is one thing, but in a country where so many religious beliefs are represented, those of one religion cannot be allowed to impact government policy so blatantly.
Day 3 – Are you proud to be from whatever country you are from?
This is a tough one. I definitely recognize that I’ve had a lot of opportunities that may not have been available to me if I hadn’t been born in America (and a boy, and white, and straight, and Christian, and not handicapped, etc etc…), so I am thankful for that i guessssssss, but I also see that my privilege has come at the expense of others’, and I don’t feel any more worthy of it than anyone else. I’m generally not a fan of the American government, American capitalism/big business, or the “American Dream,” “American Family Values,” or any of that nonsense. History has seen arrogant white men do some pretty disgusting things to basically everyone else, and I think that despite all the progress we’ve made, this country still has some way to go to escape that tradition.
Day 2 – Do you believe in an afterlife? What do you believe happens when you die?
No fucking clue. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Day 1 – Do you believe in God? What religion are you?
I don’t really take stock in any particular religious/metaphysical stance. I feel that any belief of this kind, no matter how sophisticated or elegant, is merely an attempt at describing The Way Things Are, and since none of us have the ability to step outside of our own experience to observe this, we don’t really have a vocabulary to talk about it. We do the best we can to make sense of things from our limited perspective, and religion, science, and superstition are just attempts at finding meaning in all this sense-data we are swimming in. The difference between statements like “God made it,” “It made itself,” “It is because…,” and “It just is,” is really just where they place that meaning and the terms they use to describe it. So, while I do think it is worthwhile to theorize and experiment to try to uncover as much about the universe as we can, we have to recognize that any conclusion we reach is extremely limited.
I can say though, that I personally don’t think about the universe in terms of a personal god. My view is more along the lines of a Daoist perspective, based on balance and harmony between opposing forces (Man/Nature, Heaven/Earth, Masculine/Feminine, etc). I try to align my actions with the natural way of the universe, and maintain balance in my life. I was raised Quaker, and that also had a large impact on how I look at the world. Quakerism generally emphasizes pacifism, equality, direct relationship to the divine, and thinking/feeling for oneself rather than accepting the interpretations of authority, all things that I try to employ in my life. Sorry if this was long, but I don’t have a simple answer, haha.
The Touchy-Tumblr-Is-Going-To-Fight Challenge
I’m doing this challenge on tumblr, and I’m going to post my responses here as well.
Day 1 – Do you believe in God?/What religion are you?
Day 2 – Do you believe in an afterlife? What do you believe happens when you die?
Day 3 – Are you proud to be from whatever country you are from?
Day 4 – What is your view on gay marriage?
Day 5 – Do you think sex before marriage is okay?
Day 6 – What are your views on love? Do you think it’s real? Do you think we only experience one love per lifetime? Does everyone have a soul mate?
Day 7 – Do you want to get married and/or have kids?
Day 8 – Do you think any drugs should be legalized? Do you think there should be an age for drinking?
Day 9 – Pro-life or prochoice?
Day 10 – What do you think about straightxedge?
Day 11 – What do you think about prostitution? Should it be legal?
Day 12 – What do you think about bisexuality?
Day 13 – Do you think there should be an age to get tattoos/piercings without the consent of a parent?
Day 14 – Do you believe in aliens?
Day 15 – Do you believe in regrets? do you have any terrible ones?
Day 16 – What do you want to happen to your body when you die?
Day 17 – Have you experienced your ‘first true love’ yet? Do you believe you ever will?
Day 18 – What is your take on people who self harm (cutting, burning, scratching etc etc.)
Day 19 – Do you think high schools should give out free contraceptive?
Day 20 – What do you think about plastic surgery?
Day 21 – What do you think about the death penalty?
Day 22 – Do you say your country’s national anthem/pledge of allegiance when it is said/listened to?
Day 23 – What do you think about thinspo?
Alan Watts on Nature:
The way an ecologist describes human behavior is that an action – what you do – is what the whole universe is doing at the place you call here and now. You are something that the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing… The real you is not a puppet which life pushes around; the real, deep down you is the whole universe.
(from the Alan Watts Podcast, Man and Nature #1)
The Earth as a Battery
I’ve been thinking a lot about the global warming debate lately, and I feel that the two sides that get the most media exposure are generally pretty annoying to listen to. On one side there are conservative republicans who simply refuse to hear anything that may support the hypothesis that temperature rise is being triggered by humans. On the other side there are whiny liberals who seem to think that government sponsored emissions reduction programs are all that is needed to save us from impending doom. To me, global warming is sort of a non-issue. Whether or not you believe that changes in the climate are man-made or natural, you cannot easily deny that changes are happening, nor can you deny that nearly everyone in America is using more than their fair share of resources, simply based on the level of poverty elsewhere. If there were enough available resources to go around, they would. The fact that people are poor and animals are dying shows us that either there is simply not enough for everyone, or too few people control too much. In either case, there is a clear, easy solution hanging right under our noses: USE LESS. Everyone in the world cannot live like Americans have been. That we continue to do so in the face of this knowledge is not only selfish and ignorant, but irrational. Our wealth depends on the poverty of others for its sustenance, and as the American Dream becomes ever more prevalent across the globe, the people it fucks over are getting fucked harder and harder. Whether or not this lifestyle can last is not a question. Just like your brand new laptop, it is designed to fail, making the question not if it is going to happen, but when.
Spring Fever
Warm weather is finally here, it seems, and it is wonderful. Yesterday the temperature broke 30°C for the first time this year, and in celebration I went out for ice cream with Christie, Polly, Devon and Evan. After polishing off a waffle cone dripping with butter pecan and black raspberry, we drove down to Scudder’s Falls and swam in the Delaware. There were bugs everywhere, and we found a snake slithering around in the water. Luckily I managed to avoid getting sunburned and snakebitten.
The one downside to this weather is that school is unfortunately still in session. I have more work now, what with finals coming up, than I have all semester, and at the same time (though I wouldn’t have thought it possible) even less inclination to do any of it. I just can’t shake the feeling that none of it means anything, really. In two years what will it matter if I got a good grade on a paper on Leibniz and the Problem of Evil? Until recently much of what I thought of as my life existed abstractly as little numbers in teachers’ gradebooks and collections of binary data saved on hard drives. I’ve measured much of my success as a person with a standard that lacks any real existence. It’s not that I don’t see value in education, I just think that the practice of quantifying progress with graded assignments forces a somewhat arbitrary distinction between one’s education and one’s life. It makes learning a job, school an ordeal that must be met with and conquered as a prerequisite for “success.” As someone who genuinely enjoys learning (and who was at times identified only as “the smart kid” in gradeschool), I’ve often felt that I’d somehow be less of a person if I failed to make the grade. This is simply not true. Education is not a process with a clearly defined start or finish; it doesn’t begin when the school bell rings and it doesn’t end at graduation. It is a process that is coextensive with life itself. “I think, I am.” not “I think until I graduate, then I am.”
Capitalism, Compassion, and The Prisoner’s Dilemma
The other day in class we talked about the prisoner’s dilemma, which, in brief, goes like this:
Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal. If one testifies (defects from the other) for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent (cooperates with the other), the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must choose to betray the other or to remain silent. Each one is assured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of the investigation. How should the prisoners act? (from Wikipedia)
From a strictly rational, individualistic perspective, the choice is clear. One should defect. This choice results in a 50/50 chance between a 5 year sentence and complete freedom, depending on the choice of the other prisoner, while cooperation would result in, at best, a six month sentence, and a 10 year sentence at worst. No matter what the other player does, one player will always gain by defecting. Therefore, all things being equal, all rational players should choose defect.
Christopher Hitchens vs. Frank Turek
On March 31st TCNJ’s Secular Student Alliance and Protestant Bible Fellowship teamed up to bring Atheist author Christopher Hitchens and Christian theologian Frank Turek to campus to debate whether theism or atheism better explains reality. It was a fairly interesting debate, but neither side really brought anything new to the table. Turek put forth several standard cosmological and teleological arguments for the existence of God, and Hitchens cited numerous instances of the problem of evil and said essentially that we cannot truly know either way, but that atheism is the best and most probable of available explanations.
In the end, neither speaker could agree on a grounds upon which to argue. Hitchins insisted on talking about ethical issues associated with religious belief on earth, at one point challenging the audience to think of a single moral action exclusive to religion that an atheist could not do, and then rattling off a list of immoral acts committed in the name of religious beliefs. Turek, on the other hand, invariably returned to a teleological argument for intelligent design on a cosmic scale, citing the precise calibration of the physical constants that create the possibility for human life, and the low probability of their arising as they have at random, as evidence for an intelligent first cause.
For me, the more arguments for either side I hear, the more agnostic I become. Either side can be argued for eloquently and soundly, but in order to have any real conviction one way or the other, it seems that either faith, or something like it perhaps, is required. I have yet to meet anyone who holds a belief in God with absolute certainty who does so based on reason alone. Generally, such a belief is based on a religious experience, and while one who holds it will of course attempt to verify their view logically, the ultimate source of his conviction is not in the logic, but in the experience. Similarly, empiricist beliefs that deny God require faith that one’s senses are veridical, that the world can indeed be adequately explained solely by observation and quantification. Without real conviction that this is the case, it would be very difficult to practice science sincerely. As Turek pointed out in the debate, not only is faith required to believe that a God created the universe and perfectly calibrated it for human life, but it is equally necessary for the belief that the everything we know has fallen into place at random.
Some interesting quotes from the debate:
“A good man left to his own devices will do good, and an evil man will do ill, but if you want to make a good man do evil, make him religious.” – Christopher Hitchens
“Even though Christopher says in his book, ‘there is no god and I hate him,’ God says ‘there is a Christopher Hitchens and I love him.’” – Frank Turek
And one awful one:
(On why there isn’t more debate about theism from an Islamic perspective) “…because people don’t want to have their heads cut off.” – Frank Turek
Hello
Yesterday at 9:50 pm we decided to go to the beach. It was cold and dark and we got lost on the way. We skated down the wet boardwalk and ran from the waves. Devon said that we were so close to Africa, that it was just on the other side of the water. It was the type of spontaneous thing that ought to have been amazingly fun, and it was, but there was something missing, though I can’t quite tell what. It was still great to get out of town for a while and spend time with friends, and I hope that with warmer weather will come will come increased hangage. The changing of the seasons are always the most exciting times of the year for me, and this year I feel like spring is long overdue.
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