Not listening and no accident

OK, this story doesn't look good for me. But hell, when have I ever told you stories that do?

This morning I did a Tarot reading for the day. What it said the day would bring me was the Moon reversed. That can actually mean a lot of different things, and some of them are pretty good. (For example, "Change will not be disruptive," or "Deception will be unmasked.") But my immediate, off-the-cuff reading was, "Things are trying to crawl out of my subconscious, but I'm not listening to them." And of course the word subconscious can also be used to describe any planes of activity or existence besides the material plane that we perceive with our five senses and interpret with our rational intellect—in other words, anything that our conscious minds aren't really aware of.

Was this true today? When I saw it, I assumed that it was a statement about my career and that it's pretty much always true. I tend to assume that I don't have a strong intuition, and therefore that my subconscious has to shout if it wants any chance of getting my attention. I thought, "Maybe I can meditate later in the day. Maybe meditation will quiet my mind enough that I can hear the promptings of my subconscious."

In the end, I didn't find time to meditate. Shocker, that.

But evening came, and I didn't go to bed early because I was working on something. Now, the last couple of nights—for what must be almost the first time in a month—I've had no alcohol to drink. And somehow, at a level that isn't strictly ratiocinating, I've clearly known that this has been the "right" thing for me to do right about now. I have sensed that somehow I've been drinking too much, and it's time to pull back. The only thing is, ... booze (or at any rate spirits) give me a real lift in my energy levels when it gets late. If I want to stop drinking, one thing I have to do is to go to bed early. (Or at least more-or-less early.) But I didn't go to bed early tonight because I was working on something.

Now, since I was working (ironically enough) I avoided taking a drink till I was done, lest I get myself all confused and screw up my work. But once I was done, instead of running straight to bed, I found an interesting website to browse and poured myself a drink. I even told myself, "You know you're not supposed to do this right now." And I answered myself, "Yeah, yeah, I know. But it's late and I want one so go blow it out your ear." So I sat at my computer, browsed my interesting website, and sipped my drink.

I finished the drink before I finished the website, so I went and got another.

And halfway through that second drink, my hand slipped and I spilled the rest of it all over my keyboard.

In other words, I knew what I had been told—I knew perfectly well what my "subconscious" was trying to tell me—and I ignored it. So I got the whole message restated in a way that I couldn't possibly ignore. Yes, in the normal world this kind of thing counts as an accident. But I think in this case it was no accident. I knew better, I got a drink and a second drink anyway, and so Whoever was trying to get me to cut back upped the ante. If I wasn't going to listen to what I simply knew perfectly well, maybe I'd listen to this.

And it sure got my attention for a few minutes, there's no question about that. I jumped up to get some paper towels, mopped the spilled drink off my desk, and set my keyboard upside-down on another paper towel to let it drain out. And all the time I was thinking, "Shit. I knew better, I ignored it, and look what happened."

After a while, I had finally finished mopping up the damage. What do you suppose I did then?

That's right, I went and refilled my drink! I was even aware that this was a bad idea while I was doing it, and I did it anyway. Have you ever done something knowing that it's a bad idea and that you are going to regret it? I have, plenty of times. Not just when I'm drunk. I think this is part of the dynamic of Failure, and one day I'll think about that deeply enough to have something to say about it. 

In the meantime, suffice it to say that I'm a moron. At this point, a drunken moron. Maybe now I will finally go to bed.

Just remember that early this morning my Tarot reading for the day said, "Things are trying to crawl out of my subconscious, but I'm not listening to them."

Sounds like that was true, huh? Gosh, I hope your day is better than mine.