My Experience with Tarot Cards

I can imagine a psychic tarot shoppe here

Due to my fascination with mortality and the humanistic stages of life (it's certainly more interesting than school-college-career-retirement to write about), I splurged on a seemingly pointless purchase of Rider-Waite tarot cards.

While I did not become a cross-dressing gypsy (yet... just kidding) or lose all my marbles (I lost my Christmas yarn bag of green glass marbles a long time ago), I wanted to embrace more of the mystical, humanistic traditions like the Kabbalah, which even Madonna was influenced by, and religion without actually having to go through all the effort and conversion. Who has time for spiritual texts and interpretation when there are textbooks to be read?

This is one of the bamboo offshoots of my quarter-life crisis that I experienced, in which admittedly and embarrassingly a professional services firm rejecting me played a large part, but I will not express more opinions for fear of my public blog opinions coming back to haunt me. Anyways, a quarter-life crisis is not necessarily a bad or depressing thing, but merely a time of reflection and contemplation, and, like with Apple apps, there's even a tarot card for that: the 4 of Swords! It is also a period of urgency with the feeling that certain periods like college will graduate in the near future and what one really wants to do will be siphoned off, and also a period of consideration of one's place in the world, which can be satisfactory or unsatisfactory, with the underlying motivations. Check out this spread:

According to the video below, the 4 of Swords can be seen as a knight resting and contemplating in a coffin built for him in the case that he doesn't return alive from a crusade.

Clearly, I am educated enough to know that the future cannot be divined by plastic cards biased by the reader's touchy-feeliness, which in psychology is the confirmation bias. Misinterpreting symbols and superstitions can be self-imagined constructs, but this doesn't destroy the main reason I bought the tarot cards: not to predict the future, but to see perspectives on life. 

While life in the Middle Ages depicted in the cards seems irrelevant to today, life is surprisingly still relevant with many emotions little changed through time, such as in a quote that I read somewhere that poignantly mentions that we all lived and died under the same sun.

A note must be made for the artist, Pamela Colman Smith, who died in obscurity and before recognition like Van Gogh, which is what the majority of the world will admittedly, including myself since there are too many people. People have the gift and curse of rationalizing death, but I must point out a funny card that I think is in error: How can the contemplative guy in the 2 of Wands see the world as a globe when the Middle Age people didn't know that the Earth was round?

Hmm... Reminds me of the faultiness like with Chinese knockoff Chrisdien Deny of which I actually saw a store of in China

In this individualistic society, it is sometimes hard to think about other people and their concerns. The tarot cards are supposed to tell the story of life and beyond. This is why I keep all the business cards I get; they represent a large culmination of a single person's activities, and we know that the most important person in America and the world is him/herself. This recalls a premise from How to Win Friends and Influence People; what are another person's concerns worth when one is personally struggling with bills, balding, etc.? It is a little myopic but unfortunate and inescapable.

I admittedly wanted the fast path to simple understanding and interpretation of the cards being swamped with schoolwork at the time, so I found this video extremely helpful in illuminating the intricate stories, pronouncements, realities, and symbolism in the cards, which includes things like the sun, moon, death, and even society.

While I don't shuffle the deck to keep them in my order of 56 minor arcana and 22 major arcana, I keep the box on my desk as a warm reminder of the stages of life. Occasionally, I slide through the cards when I need perspective to recall many of the stories that shed light on our short lives.

Ultimately, this purchase was extremely worth it and is my cerebral but emotional type of endless toy, sort of like a Rubik's cube or kinetic sand. It is something worth revisiting to remind ourselves that what concerns us now also concerned our ancestors even if knowledge has accumulated significantly to allow things like the Internet and skyscrapers in the modern age.

Even if I am not an expert, I <3 my tarot cards! Fun trivia: the standard 52-card playing deck evolved from tarot cards.

My Very Significant Short Story

Hi everyone, this may come as a bit of a shock like that surprise Beyoncé album, but I have been working on a short story in my semester sojourn. 

I have finished and published it since barriers of entry are so low that anyone can be a (self-)published author, and I have always wanted to commit time to write and publish something serious since I was a child. Eventually, I will be too busy working to have time to do something like this again. I want people to find their own meaning and be changed, hopefully for the better!

It is a postmodern satire called My Very Significant Short Story. A description can be found in the links.

Also, it's only $3! Check it out, take a chance, please spread the word especially if you enjoyed it, and *cough* buy a copy! It is available at all major eBook retailers.

Available
Amazon (+audiobook available)
X iBooks (+audiobook available)
X Nook
X Kobo

Pithy, Artsy Shorts

The best things to write in the middle of the night when one can't sleep are as postmodern as the fleeting, anonymous, and selfish cars outside. Drivers and machine make their way to either fruitfulness or desolation; their lights leave no trail.

Beautiful Fool
A beautiful fool, enraptured and enamored with a shiny object that is his ideals, casts only a shadow of effectiveness. His ideals have crystallized to a magnetic end, but the shiny object is the opposite polarity as the beautiful fool. He can run and try to reach but is constantly and inevitably repelled by impossibility. He is just that: a dogmatic, beautiful fool.

High Touch
When slogging through thick mud with the texture of too many ideas, one struggles through imagining that one will reach enjoyment and relief at the end, but the mud is continuous; it will never end. It is a barren, monotonous field. On the bottom at the feet is the quicksand of too many goals. One cannot choose to be swallowed and enveloped without a strange will.

Antagony
To want but to not need
To admire but not receive
To enthuse but not be pleased
And to indulge without greed
These are all elements of antagony

Back 2 School

After moving in my stuff and settling down to classes, I must post something witty and disparaging. Now that I have the exorbitant privilege of a refrigerator and no mandated meal plan, this means no more awkward wasted time at the dining hall and 1 hour plus food binges. Speaking of awkward, I managed to get 2 photos with our great President Joseph Aoun:

1/2

2/2

Con$idering that I am looking for co-op and have several new commitments this semester, I had to engineer a new diet and schedule worthy of the Mayans and their calendar.

The Joy of Rice
Sweet, white grains of jasmine rice! A rice cooker is a godsend to college students and can even be your only cooking utility, although I also bought a combo pan-pot thing from Amazon just in case.

When the rice begins to form and solidify, you can throw in your meat or "sides" as said in Cantonese to steam-pressure cook. This can include, for example, sausages and Chinese sausages. Best of all, you can save valuable time and eat pre-cooked rice! A miracle!

The ceremonial first rice of the semester. I am proud to eat this nutritious staple of my ancestors eaten even in the Qin dynasty.

My school convenience food pyramid

So far, I have infallibly eaten rice at every meal with a side, which makes me feel less tired than eating bread for some reason. You can even pair it with a two-serving Boloco bowl. I thought I reached new lows when I ate Boloco rice with rice, but talk about economical!

Let's do some sophisticated, high-level accounting. $1620/110 = $14.73 per meal swipe. Boloco bowl = $9.82. NO THANK YOU MEAL PLAN

Saying that the meal plan is not highway robbery is like saying fast food doesn't cause obesity.

Ready for the next nuclear attack

How about some tuna tartare? IS CANNED TUNA

I wonder if I will eat so much canned tuna, get mercury poisoning, and become a thermometer.

Incredibly Funny Professors
I had the amazing luck of getting a gaggle of funny professors this semester. Being tired increases the delirium and makes their jokes 2x funnier, and when I want to sleep in class (don't judge me, I study a lot outside of class anyways), I somehow start cracking up at their incredibly cheesy jokes.

For example, my mid-level accounting professor asked on the first day to ease the tension (but ended up creating more), "How do accountants get paid?" Student: "By providing a service." Professor: "Yes, that's right, just like a doctor. He tells you to pull down your pants, sticks a shot up your butt, and gets paid." (NO JOKE)

Now, my management information systems teacher is a true comedian, and the Boston accent helps. When he was concerned that the unusual two-tiered class schedule would mess with his SoulCycling class, he said, "I want to weigh as much as I did when I first started: 8 pounds, 9 ounces."

If my mouth could send text messages and emojis, LOL chat bubbles and Pusheens would be flooding out.

The Mysterious Author

When I was a child, I was quite a bookworm (or, from a badly-translated bootleg Fullmetal Alchemist sub, "a book-eating monster"). I read many books that have been since forgotten for similar reasons as others: among them, the vicarious hedonism of being transported to another world.

With the decline in use of physical books, I reminisce warmly on when I read for leisure. Now, my reading is mostly filled with technical and professional education materials mixed with the hullabaloo of the Internet.

Amy Tan I
A Chinese-American author always stuck with me. Although I never read any of Amy Tan's books due to procrastination, thinking that I wasn't old enough at the time to understand or appreciate them, I still haven't read The Joy Luck Club due to my self-disdain of lengthy time commitments like reading a novel. This is despite finding copies of her early novels in the house; as irrational as it seems, I don't want the obligation of finishing a book weighing on other commitments.

Passing Affairs with Asian Literature
I never finished reading Memoirs of a Geisha although I was enchanted by it, but I finished the 656-page Brothers by Yua Hua in a record 3 lazy summer days years ago, gripped by its illuminations of the rapid change in China and its people. I considered Ties that Bind, Ties that Break about a girl's struggle against foot binding enough old Chinese historical lore for middle school, and the obscure Japanese book The Spring Tone now seems to be like a Haruki Murakami ripoff judging by the things that a friend who has read his books tells me.

I must admit that I am biased, but I relate strongly with Asian books for their similarities, implicit understanding, and culture.

The Library as a Tomb
The library is a peaceful, productive place I love in all of its forms, but its functions have confused me. Clearly, the majority are non-profit, but it boggles the mind that it is impossible to read or watch everything in a library. In fact, I wonder how many materials are even cycled through, about the people who devour the most obscure, rigorous, and technical texts, or how many times a passionate romance fantasy by a small-name author is even read in an oversaturated genre.

Time cannot be taken back, so only the readers will know what they gain from the experience.

Writing can be easy as virtually everyone who is literate can do it as I am now, but I think that many words, worlds, and knowledge will scarcely be opened, sort of like being contained in a tomb. The same goes for published works of the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, etc. and the passing and transient minds who made their ideas known.

The Mysterious Author
One personal touch I find entertaining is the book jacket. In a valiant attempt to hook the reader with a cliff-hanger, the author's description usually follows. Often times, it reveals funny quirks usually involving habits or pets of someone who devoted so much time writing something for purpose or profit.

Amy Tan II
Revisiting her website, I read her brief autobiography and felt many parallels and understanding of her Chinese-American life to mine. One of her books' author descriptions mentions being part of a band of famous authors called The Rock Bottom Remainders. Many promotional materials mention this funny and colorful fact regardless of its seriousness, but I think it inspires one to live a creative, interesting, and full life.

Venture to Bermuda and Bermuda (Video) Shorts

For the post about the cruise, please click here.

Tour Videos

Quick Reference
Maps that kept disappearing from the visitor's center (zoom in):

Front

Back

Great Bermuda attractions site, Wikipedia, and CIA World Factbook

Views Onboard
So, we finally arrived at tax haven Bermuda! Unfortunately, this was also during a very hot and humid period, so that greatly reduced the pleasure. I am an anomaly in that I don't really like traveling anymore, sorry (see cruise post).

The city of Hamilton

Catherine Zeta Jones's house is somewhere

Day 1 - Hamilton, the Only City in Bermuda and Near Heat Strokes
Since our grandma was slow, and the heat wasn't dry, we walked a few blocks before complaining and heading back to the ship. Still, we managed to see City Hall and target any places with strong air conditioning like the Bermuda Monetary Authority.

Woah, a clock!

Inscribed, RULES TO LIVE BY FOR ALL GOVERNMENTS AND PEOPLE

Urban development

Note: This is a post of epic length, and many are too unfocused to read anything in its entirety including myself on occasion, but I strongly suggest that you click read more anyways for better materials.

Cruise Chaos

See my post about Bermuda here.

The ship herself (himself? Check your privilege!)

My feelings on this cruise are more mixed and jumbled than my complimentary Bingo card with 4 four-ways each missing one number.

Disembarking Boston touristy photo

They always take 2!

After getting on-board, a natural instinct is to explore the man-made quarters of hedonism in all of its cheap art glory.

Baby catching fish

Atrium, ooooh. "And she's buying a stairway to heaven..."

Check out dat vase. "I'm all about that vase, bout that vase, no treble"

Meet my friend The Vase

This was a Holland America cruise (synonymous with tameness and old people) to Bermuda from Saturday, 7/4 to Saturday, 7/11. I believe I read some materials along the lines of, "If you want to stay up late and party, this is not the cruise for you." YES!

Here, there was a mandatory safety demonstration that interrupted my sampling of the buffet, forcing me to leave the food. At least, I took a picture of part of the Boston port's supply chain.

Cool

Note: This is a post of epic length, and many are too unfocused to read anything in its entirety including myself on occasion, but I strongly suggest that you click read more anyways for better materials.

The Value of a Day

McDonald's in Times Square, not my photo

I’m sure all of us have experienced some days that are more positive than others, or even some days that are more profitable than others. Not to create stress, but to evaluate the maximum value of day, I conjure thoughts of a large multinational corporation.

Let’s say a company like McDonald’s has around $27 billion in yearly revenue. Dividing by 365 and disregarding holidays off, that’s about $74 million in average daily global revenue with a net profit margin of 17.34% in 2014. This implies that good or bad shocks can be virtuous or devastating especially with how efficient markets are today; I’m sure there is a lot of pressure for an ad launch to be successful and viral, while a scandal or bad earnings can easily take a few notches off market capitalization.

However, with less pressure, let’s estimate the average life expectancy of an American as of now at 79 years. That’s about 28,835 days of which we have lived a varying portion of it. Thus, I think a day is quite valuable! I think of Steve Job’s various enlightening quotes on life and mortality.