Four of Cups

Truth be told, I started this project a short time before the new year. I think I was at it for about a month before I went on vacation to Michigan. Though I brought my tarot cards with me, I didn't touch them while I was there. I'm not sure why; I'd been enjoying my task before. But somehow with the change in location and bleakness in the landscape I stopped learning. I haven't picked up my cards since.

Today I begin again, away from my usual internet haunts. This kind of thing is more appropriate at a place other than one thronged with friends. Though I love the tarot, I recognize that not everyone on my friends-list is interested in how the Queen of Swords can be used to interpret my day.

The Four of Cups depicts a person leaning against a tree, staring off into space on some decks, and staring at the ground in others. There are three cups stacked in front of him, and a fourth one being offered from a disembodied hand sticking out of a cloud. The image is sort of comical to me, though the mood of the card is rather bleak; apathy, self-absorption, and retreating so far within that even miraculous opportunities are completely missed.

Since I stopped the tarot, this has been my life. Well, actually, if I'm going to be honest here, this has been my life since I moved away from a home I knew to completely unfamiliar territory, more than six months ago. I haven't much left my apartment. I don't yet have a job. I sleep all day and stay up all night, keeping myself entertained and missing the opportunities the day brings. I'm stuck in emotional hydraulics, as my source succinctly puts it. Everything has become stale and flat for me, and going outside seems far too much trouble than it's worth. And, though I'd like to blame winter, I really must place the blame on myself.

Self-absorption is probably my keenest fault. Everything I experience and feel is focused through the lens of how it makes me feel, how it affects my day, or what dampers it might put on my mood. I am a slave to my emotions, really. If I wake up in the morning and feel tired, I go right back to sleep until I wake up and feel tired no more. This time could come at 4PM or 10AM; if I don't have to be anywhere, it doesn't matter to me. I'd like to take up a constructive hobby like sewing or different types of art, but because I judge whether I'm up to such a task on the basis of whether or not I feel like it today, I haven't started doing even the things that I'd like to learn. If I have something I need to take care of, it's so easy to put it off until tomorrow. And, I'm ashamed to say, if I feel like being alone, I will be alone at the expense even of my partner's feelings. Sometimes why he still puts up with it is beyond me.

I have my better days, of course. Especially in the spring and summer; my months to live. But the Four of Cups rings true for me at every interpersonal exchange. How I react to you and how I perceive you will always come back to me. This log is an excellent example of what I mean.

Slowly, I think, I'm trying to change that a little. When I see the Four of Cups (and it comes up fairly often when I'm doing casual readings for myself), I am reminded of my own most glaring faults. The Four of Cups advises you to refocus yourself, to interact with the outside world and other people without focusing so much on whether or not you want to do anything. Clear your inner clutter by turning away from it. Remember what satisfaction came from leaving the house, remember the activities that once brought you joy and experience them again. God knows what opportunities, job-wise, that I've lost through my continuous apathy since I arrived here. Just like the reclining man in the illustration, I've lost my way by focusing too much on myself. Maybe it's time to change that.

But then again, I could always put it off until tomorrow.