Magical thinking for the win

I told you back in August that I had started trying to learn to read Tarot. Among other things this means that I start most days with a quick check of what I need to know about the day. As often as not, I get white noise, or combinations of cards that make no sense.

But I've also used the cards, from time to time, to answer Yes/No questions. Should I apply for this job? Will there be anybody useful at this job fair? Is this plan for seeing Marie a good one? And there the answers have looked kind of reliable. One of the questions that I have asked not infrequently is whether to apply for this or that job, and I get the answer No pretty reliably. Of course I think this answer is great, because I don't really want another job at this point (or at any rate not just any old job). And in my mind I have this fantasy that I should spend the time instead producing content: writing a book about the stuff that I do professionally, or writing philosophy, or some damned thing. Even just writing more of these blog posts. (I did an inventory yesterday of ideas I've had, that I haven't written up yet, and came up with more than twenty new posts each for this site and for the Patio. Let's see whether I get off my ass and write any of them.) 

Fantasies don't pay the bills. And even if that's not an immediate concern for me right at the moment, it feels a little presumptuous to say that I am "supposed" to be spending my time doing this or that. Besides, even if you accept the whole idea of consulting oracles, I've read that it's unreliable to read for yourself about any question where you really care about the answer, because your opinions are likely to cloud your judgement or skew the reading.

Funny thing, though — it turns out there's a website whose owner will read Ogham for you for free, as an oracle. How accurate are her predictions? The people who leave comments seem to be pleased with the results she gives them, though that may be nothing more than selection bias. In any event she's never heard of me before. And it's free, so it can't hurt to ask. Right?

Anyway, a couple days ago I submitted a question:

Dear Kimberly,

I've been trying to learn Tarot for a few months now, but I'm often still baffled by the images so I'd like to cross-check something with you. Just at the moment I'm out of work; but several times I have had the experience of seeing a job posting that might be a possibility, asking about it, and getting a very clear "NO" from the cards. OK, maybe they were all just bad places to work. But it's happened enough that I want to ask: Am I supposed to be doing Something Else with this time, instead of just looking for another job? If so, what?

Thanks very much!

Hosea

And her reply was as follows:

Hi Hosea,

Yes, my Ogham agree with your Tarot -- you need to be doing Something Else.

They provide Quert or Delight well-dignified to answer your question.

Then she went on to give me a bunch of advice about saving money; some of her suggestions are things I'm already doing, and others aren't terribly practical for me right now. But of course she's never heard of me before, so how should she know the details of my situation? I did try to ask her a follow-up question, ("So what exactly should I be doing instead?") and got no answer. Maybe I'll ask again next week.

In the meantime, though, she confirmed that I'm not "supposed" to be looking for work right now. Maybe the way I phrased the question prejudiced her answer, but I still think it's interesting that that's what she said.