Retirement planning through sortilege

I feel stupid writing this, but that's probably good for me, isn't it?

One of my big topics during this time is to figure out what the hell to do next. (See, e.g., the 6-word slogan I've out on my masthead: So what do I do now?) In line with this concern, I've started learning to cast simple tarot readings, using the instructions that John Michael Greer posts here. Do I believe that the tarot tells the future? Probably I have to answer with Niels Bohr and say, "Of course not …."

But I will add that Wife seemed to have a pretty good success rate reading Tarot back when we were together, or at any rate when she was still in her stride as a self-confident witch. I don't know if she still reads today, or with what level of success.

Anyway, one of the big questions I've been concerned with lately is whether to invest the money that I have collected in my 401(K) account from work with the financial advisors that I first mentioned here. And the answers I've gotten have been, … well, … not encouraging.

For these questions I've been using a variant method, not quite the one Greer explains in his post that I reference above. This is a method that Wife taught me years ago. 

1. Think of a yes/no question while you shuffle the cards.
2. Turn over the first three cards.
3. Count each upright card as a "Yes," and each reversed card as a "No." Majority wins.
4. If you want more commentary on what it's going to look like, read the cards themselves.

Over the last couple of days, I have asked these questions in several different ways.

• Can I trust XYZ with my money? Answer: No. (8 of Cups reversed, Sun reversed, King of Wands upright. But I flipped the cards as I turned them over, which normally I don't do. Does that matter? Should I count the reversed cards as upright and vice versa?) 
• Will XYZ treat my money dishonestly? Answer: No. (10 of Pentacles reversed, 8 of Swords reversed, 2 of Wands upright.)
• Will someone else handle my money better than XYZ? Answer: Yes. (Magician, Hermit, Page of Pentacles, all upright. I assume the Hermit there means "Keep looking," but how in the hell am I supposed to find a magician to invest my retirement account with?)

Finally this afternoon I tried a different way to word it: Are XYZ the right people to invest my money with? And the answer came up like this:

Strictly speaking, I suppose that's a Yes, isn't it, because two cards are upright and only one is reversed. But it doesn't look like encouraging commentary. The way I read this, it's telling me:

• Eight of Swords: I'm only choosing them because I feel like I don't have any other choice. And it's true that I haven't been interviewing anybody else, but that's because up till now all their answers to all my questions have sounded really reasonable. And when I look them up on the SEC website there are no outstanding complaints against them.
• Queen of Swords reversed: I'm at risk from some kind of deceit. Either that or an older woman will be badly disposed towards me. (But XYZ is a small firm and all the analysts are men. This couldn't mean Wife, could it?)
• Five of Wands: And there's a risk of family fights if I go ahead. Family fights? That's how Wife always read the 5 of Wands. But I can't really imagine why choosing this investment advisor over that one would cause family fights. How is that possible? On the other hand the little booklet packed in with the cards says, "Imitation, as, for example, sham fight, but also the strenuous competition and struggle of the search after riches and fortune. In this sense it connects with the battle of life. Hence some attributions say that it is a card of gold, gain, opulence." I suppose gain and opulence sound nice -- certainly a lot better than family fights. Hmm.

The thing is, I can see using the Tarot to focus your thinking about a subject, to help you frame a question, or to inspire you to look at aspects of a topic you had hitherto ignored. But when all the visible evidence says that XYZ firm look honest and competent, when the contract requires them to act as fiduciaries and has safeguards built in to prevent bad behavior, and when the cards still look ambiguous or depressing -- at that point isn't it just magical thinking to reject what's visible to your eyes because of invisible hints? People have been ruined by magical thinking. Knowing that hasn't stopped me from indulging in it throughout this transition (see, e.g., here and here) but I try to keep it reined in.

Oh well. I'll make a decision some day soon.

      

Marie and Semele

You know the story of Semele, right? Zeus seduced her and impregnated her; then she asked to see him in his glory as King of the Gods and she was incinerated when he appeared as a lightning bolt. The story says that Hera put her up to it, out of jealousy. Meanwhile it was one more story to prove that Fucking With Gods can be dangerous. Don't try this at home.

Then one night during her last visit, Marie said it happened to her.

OK, not exactly. Not literally. But somewhere in the middle of a marathon orgasm she had an … experience … that was just, … well, … different.

Later we talked about it. She said it was hard to describe; maybe it involved saying the unsayable. I joked back that this is what poetry is for. She explicitly made the connection with Semele, and wondered aloud if all the stories of bad things happening to Zeus's mistresses might not have been simply pictures to describe otherwise unsayable sexual experiences. We talked some more, but only around the edges of things.

Yesterday, a week after she flew home, I went for a walk and fiddled with the idea a little bit and then sent her this. My excuse for intruding on her story was that, well, whatever she was going to write was probably not in dactylic hexameter. So our versions would be different.

Poets recite the old story of Semele struck by a lightning bolt.

Was it the kind that incinerates? Did she fall dead as a consequence?

Or was it a manner of speaking -- attempting to say the unsayable?

Lying abed with the Sky-father, clutching his greatness inside herself,

Feeling familiar ecstasies rising and crashing like ocean waves,

All of a sudden -- and standing apart from her usual raptures -- 

A shock shot its way through her body, from cunt to the crown of her forehead,

Throwing her sharply outside herself, as if her awareness stood next to her.

Poleaxed and awestruck, not breathing, and striving to hold the immensity

That batted away her perception like kitty-cats batting a thimble,

She fell on the soft bed adoring -- a heifer struck down for a sacrifice.

Some women live through a death like this. 

Semele might have been one of them.

A few hours later, she replied with her version. And sure enough, it wasn't in dactylic hexameter.

It must have been a god

It cannot have been mortal

 

The pleasure was a lightning bolt

it tore through me

it burned

 

it consumed me, I tell you

 

there was no part of me left

 

Yet after

I was intact

or I seemed so

 

It must have been a god

but when I could look

I saw you

I don't think I have anything more to say, other than to let the poems speak for themselves. Anything more from my side would just spoil it.

But wow. It was different.

     

Visit from Marie

Marie visited a couple weeks ago -- well, it was for about a week at the end of July and wrapping around to the beginning of August. We fucked. We talked. We did a little hiking, and some cooking. And we just hung out. On the whole it was a good visit.

A couple of our conversations orbited around the topics that I discussed with you-all here and here. Marie said that yes, she had indeed interpreted my unwillingness to marry-or-quasi-marry her as a reflection on her, that she wasn't good enough. I think she understood my reply that no, it's because I'm not going to trust anyone that much again. She was sad, but she understood.

We spent part of the time talking about my job-hunt. Mostly I have gotten pretty sluggish about this since discovering that I might not need to get a job at all. But of course that's not settled. At one point I dragged out some of the personality tests that I took back in April; of course I conceded that she might not be interested, but she said sure, she'd love to see them. My next remark was that I had whipped through the questions pretty quickly, so that maybe the answers weren't really accurate. Really? Let me see what they say about you. Then she paged through the results and seconded every single thing they said. So I guess I don't need to waste time re-taking those personality tests, huh?

There is one job opportunity that I'm still in the running for, and that interests me. It's a position at a small local company, in some ways kind of like a start-up (though not literally so), and right now they have nothing at all in place like what I do. But they've decided they need it. So I would have the chance to build an entire system from the ground up. And while I have spent plenty of time in earlier posts complaining about my line of work, this prospect is actually pretty exciting. Anyway, Marie and I talked about it, and about some of the questions the interviewers would be likely to ask me. One evening, in fact, we sat down to go through the job posting line-by-line, to make sure that I could speak to every single point in it. As we talked, I kept getting ideas for things I wanted to say in the professional blog I'm writing; so I'd hop up and write myself a note for later, then come back and we'd go on to the next point. 

One thing I realized while watching myself do this is how much I actually enjoy the professional work I've been doing all these years, and how proud I am of the mastery that I've acquired with so many years of experience. It's a tiny little corner of the business world, but I do it well and I like that. Also I've had time to develop a lot of really strong opinions about how the work should be done; and as you know too well by now, I also enjoy having strong opinions. So don't take any of my complaints about my work too seriously, because they are a long way from the whole story.

The other thing I noticed is that at a certain point Marie suddenly got very quiet. This looked like a danger sign; I took it to mean that this part of the discussion had gone on too long, and I was getting too self-absorbed. So I wrapped up our review of the job posting and we went on to something else. Probably we went to bed. And in the morning, I asked her about it. What was wrong? Was there something going on with you that I was ignoring, or failing to pick up on?

No, she said. But as we had that animated conversation going over your job posting, I realized it was exactly the way I had always fantasized our interactions would be whenever I imagined us working together on something. That part was really great, but the flip side is I realized it's only going to happen very rarely because we're never going to be together that often.

Yes and no, I answered. The only part I've clearly said "No" to is living together as if married. We won't have that. But the way we talked last night wasn't based on living together. We can still collaborate on things, build them together, build on each other's contributions. We can still do all of that. And once we come to a long-term agreement about how to pay for travel, we can set up some kind of regular schedule for seeing each other. So don't despair.

I'm not sure if I was able to convince her not to despair -- sometimes I think that's asking a lot for Marie -- but she did cheer up after that. Baby steps.

There's probably not much to say about the hiking or cooking we did. And the sex deserves a post of its own.

       

TEDx talk about fathers and the law

I wish I had seen this TEDx talk back in the day: back when I was so afraid that the courts would be prejudiced against me because I was a father, and that Wife would automatically get custody in case of divorce because Motherhood. (But see also here.)

Of course, what she says is that the courts really are prejudiced against fathers, and that fathers really do lose their children when they shouldn't. But it would have been nice to know there was someone in my corner anyway. She also says that things are very slowly getting better, which is good to know. Of course, the talk dates from 2020: that's seven years after Wife and I finally separated, and eleven years after I first engaged an attorney and planned to serve Wife with divorce papers. On the other hand, even back then my attorney told me that in our state courts usually assigned custody to be 50/50.

Probably it is just as well that, for all her tough talk, Wife was so inert and passive, so dependent on me, that she basically let me write the whole separation agreement. At least it meant that I dodged any number of bullets which would have come at me in case of a serious fight. I guess it's good to know that things are slowly getting better for other fathers.