Isn’t it strange how common tarot cards have become? It seems as though everyone I meet has a deck or used to have a deck. The thing that gets me is that no one ever knows how to read them. Maybe it’s because I live in Austin and it’s trendy to be into metaphysics, or maybe it’s just that people are lazy about their magickal pursuits. It seems that most people are more than happy to read a bunch about things but almost never pursue the actual practice.
I guess I’m guilty of this exact problem though on a less surface level pursuit. I am not stuck on basics of any sort and I really don’t own anything that I can’t use with complete ease, but I really do have a problem dealing with my energy manipulation problems. It seems that the hardest thing to do in life is to constantly practice any discipline when no one is there to check up on you. Maybe that’d be the nice thing in having a teacher to help push me. I know that if I had a tight knit community that I could “compete” with, I would push myself to far greater levels, but it’s difficult to find a decent group of people that are my age and yet are willing to devote themselves to furthering their magickal pursuits and abilities.
What if you considered the “continuing ed” idea. Often, I find myself pursuing something and will devote an enormous amount of time becoming proficient at it, at which time I use that proficiency to achieve a particular goal, then stay at that level of proficiency ever after. I have many interests and it is easy to lose myself in a sort of dabbling extraveganza with all these interests. But what if we chose something, one or two things, at which to become more than proficient, and just as most professions require, pushed ourselves to participate in “continuing education.” Workshops, classes and distance learning opportunities abound for the neopagan and, truly, we have no excuse for not utilizing those sources b/c many of them are free or dirt cheap. Yes, yes, I know, we all think we are more advanced than the 10 millionth beginning magick course, but at some point we have to buck up and take a course or two in order to 1) stop hiding in the closet so we can (as the previous post suggests) become someone who lives in the real world and happens to have different beliefs; 2) meet all the other pagans who need to live in the real world and just happen to have different beliefs, 3) be a model for all those that might need one; 4) be a teacher for those that might need one; 5) get off our high horse and be a student to someone who is teaching (even if we feel more advanced b/c let’s face it– they are teaching the damn class and what the hell are we doing) and 6) have a group with which to learn, grow, advance, discover we know a lot, discover we know very little, and if you feel you must, compete. A class or two a couple times a year would be enough, I’m thinking. If we called it “required continuing education” it might be just enough to push ourselves along, review the basics, learn something new, and stimulate the desire to learn more.
Well, I agree with you in part…most people do just “acquire” things, most people do look into or should I say…seem to be in to something “cool” or the gauche(am I using that term correctly?) thing at the time. I truly believe that the population is in search of their center, we are in search of our center our ground you might say. We have gone past in movement, spiritualy, our 80’s-90’s, even as far back as the 70’s way of thinking…greed, narcisism, selfishness…but, we have a very looooong journey ahead of us…there is a shift in the human soul. From centralised leadership to personal power. I believe you are in essence correct in your assertion that you would do better with a competitor environment…I find myself in the same situation. Why can’t I truly escel in any one thing that I put my mind to…Why is it i can teach myself to read and speak russian or chinese or japanese or spanish or do anything until someone tells me that they can’t do that…then I just quit…it seems as though i lost my motivation. Well, there may be an answer…the answer may be more of a nightmare than anyone would want to know, but it may be an answer nevertheless. The quote from the psuedo-science fiction television show…about the federal agents that investigate paranormal incidents could very well be on to something…fairly recently I have been introduced to information that is truly scary about the world at large, as well as out home. Things that could only come from a comic or a fictional novel…but, these things have been talked about for years, of course, always with that look in peoples eyes when brought up though. I think that those conversations of old had and have merit to them, the subject matter may have some truth to it. I don’t believe that we should just dismiss our current position in life as being dealt a deck of cards…all i can say is investigate and the truth will show itself. The future is ours.
Roderick,
For the most part, you have written a lot of words and said almost nothing. I wrote about not learning things and you are talking about a decentralized national power and federal agents that investigate paranormal events. I really don’t see the relevance of this, and I absolutely wish you’d explain the second half of the comment because you alluded to some sort of useful information and yet you didn’t say what that information was.
On the other hand, I agree that we’re moving away from greed, narcissism, and selfishness, but I really don’t believe that there’s a true center that the world will ever find. In general, something only stops moving when it dies (even a society) and I really don’t think that there will ever be a point where our culture will find perfection because there are simply too many people who want too many different things. Unless everyone dies or becomes zombies, then things become a bit simpler.