Today I used the Tarot of Tales. No, not that “Tales”, it would be called “Tarot of Tales Of” if so.
Okay first of all, like hell that’s a little book, that’s a fucking hardcover book. “Little book” usually means the small paper pamflet.
Second of all, I wish said book was more explicit on its inspirations. The theme for this deck is folk tales and while I could recognize some, they’re still more of a general motif… then again, folk tales tend to not have concise titles like “Red Riding Hood”, they tend to be more like “The lazy rabbit that didn’t prepare for winter” and such.
Petty (and I do mean petty) complaints aside, the deck is great. Pretty in presentation, pretty in execution.
Sidenote, I’ve noticed that there’s two types of tarot decks: The ones that glide in your hand because they’re printed by companies that print playing cards, and the kind that feel a little bit stiffer because they’re mainly printed by regular prints.
Which do I prefer? Honestly I can make an argument for both. The slicker decks feel creat to shuffle but the stiffer ones are less cumbersome to have remain still.
For today’s reading, the Four of Pentacles (Coins) traditionally depicts a man balancing a pentacle in his head, while holding another one and having his feet on a pentacle each. It’s a card that invites you to consider your relationship with money. The man in the image is clearly wealthy and with money literally on his head, but is he holding onto that other coin too hard maybe?
A Reversed Four of Cups indicates retreat into oneself, while a Reversed Ten of Cups speaks of disconnect and misalignment. So today’s reading is shockingly clear in its message of “Meditate on what earning money means to you and what might make you feel divorced from your main means to earn bread”.
Fun fact: I tend to make a couple of blank drafts with general topic prompts just in case a post feels too short, and the one I had for this draft IS related to today’s reading despite writing it yesterday.
Might as well skip to it then, I was actually idly ruminating about something I wrote yesterday, about how to me writing these blogs and websites without ads and such is tantamount to a flex. And the reason for this is that the brain I use for comercial stuff is different from the one I use for free stuff.
I think it’s easier if I explain it with an example.
Ages ago I learned that stock photo websites actually allow you to upload your own photos and you get a money if they get used. Which, for starters, I did always wonder how stock images happened to begin with…
At the time I was thinking “sure, what’s a bit of money on the side, right?” but I immediately sensed what that might entail. If the photos don’t get used it’s not just “Oh, I didn’t get views, oh well”, now it’s “I’m not earning money because they don’t get used”. Which would lead me to seeking the stuff that I sense people would want to use rather than what I want to take and just like that, my hobby, the thing I do to decompress from work, has become work.
And I already turned one hobby into my job (games, writing is my vocation so it doesn’t count), I don’t need another one such case nor another job, I already can barely do said job because paperwork is always on the way.
Absolutely zero shame on anyone that earns their living doing this by the way, we all have our lifestyles and that one just isn’t mine.
That’s why I try to make anything that’s not a videogame free if at all possible. Videogames are my job, when I’m working I think about trends, about all the minutia that goes into making something stand out in the market. And mind you, I LOVE that part of the job to a certain extent, I unironically love advertisement and see it as an underrated form of pop art that’s on decline. And while ruminating on those things is still fun regardless, it’s also constraining.
For doll photography for example, I know exactly the sort of photos that get thousands of users in traction. Sometimes my own pics overlap with that, but ultimately what brings me joy is a more au natural approach in the outdoors that’s more akin to a gravure photoshoot.
I wake up every day thanking whoever needs to be thanked that I have enough money to be comfortable and do silly things like writing a daily blog that has zero monetization FOR FUN.
To be fair, writing an average of 1000 daily words about how I feel and what I do IS technically a way to keep myself in writing shape during the many writing downtimes I end up in, but also again, I make sure to keep that out of mind to not feel like I have to do it because of work.
So how did my day go?
I sent one (1) email!
🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳
To be fair, Mondays are “Soft Sundays” for me. I slowly get back into the pace of things, but I tend to use Mondays to sort out what needs to be done through the week.
Speaking of sorting, I sorted things around the house and whatnot, but I’m gonna be honest, I spent most of the day playing Vampire Survivors on and off. That Castlevania DLC is unironically GOTY material.
Tomorrow is my six month checkup for my hair transplant, and being a 4PM appointment means my whole day is commited to that.
I might take Ruri out for pics around the city afterwards, since she’s already all set up anyways.