Childish - My Moth Story

Well, I did a bucket list item yesterday. I got to share a story at The Moth here in NYC. Hard to believe back in the day when my brother and I would listen to the podcast that I'd actually do the thing. I have no idea what they are going to do with the footage, whether it will actually air, or what happens next, so I wanted to share the story here.

The theme of the night was "childish." Without further ado, here is what I shared (I mean, my performance differed slightly, but this is what I was going for).

Pictured: Me at the thing!

I met myself across the table the other day.

I'm a tarot reader. It's quite the profession. Never boring, I'll say that much. Out of respect for my clientele, I'm not going to use names.

One of the cardinal rules of the profession is to not project. You're basically guaranteed to see similarities in the problems someone is facing to your own life. But there is being sympathetic to someone's struggles and then there is projecting your life events into someone else's story. The former helps you be good at your job while the latter is one of the easiest ways to be terrible at it.

Indeed, the dynamic between a reader and the querent is an incredibly fragile one. There's a peculiar flavor of skepticism that's almost always there. And I'm in favor of that. We should be skeptical of those we get advice from. But if the person truly didn't need help and believe you can give it to them, they would never have taken a seat. So there's always a level of trust that is being extended as well.

This dynamic can limit what I am able to do. When you sit across from me, it is my drive to try to make your path better for having had the conversation. But I can't take away your choices. I can only advise. Admonishment is rarely a good way to get someone to ask themselves the questions they need to ask. So I try and make my table a judgement free zone where I encourage you to do the things that clearly are what excite you.

The deck itself speaks volumes. One of the tricks of Tarot is that every card has good advice attached to it. So, no matter what you draw, you'll always get good advice. The magic comes from believing that the cards that came out in your reading were the cards that you needed to see. In my experience, I've found that to be true time and time again.

One day, I had three people approach my table: two middle aged friends and one child. We start our reading and one of the cards to come out was the three of wands. There's a lot of symbolism baked into each and every card, but for the sake of time and purposes of our story, all you have to know is that it has boats on it.

At that moment, the person's eyes lit up and they began telling me about what their life was building to in that moment: Taking to the seas.

Yes. Taking to the seas. Apparently, they had first wanted to sail across the ocean and hadn't realized that it's kind of a big deal that requires a lot and can easily end in death. So, after that realization, they were going to get a boat, move their family onto it, homeschool their kids, and take it up and down the coast.

I looked at the child with understanding. While my family had stayed land based in their adventures, I had also grown up homeschooled and pretty much constantly in harm's way. Whether that be getting run over by wildlife or almost causing someone else to fall off a cliff, I've lost count of how many times I've had to stare death in the face before puberty.

I have a complicated relationship with it. One one hand, making it to this point in life should not have been as luck based as it was. On the other, I had an extraordinarily unique upbringing that has made me who I am today.

It's a pretty common hypothetical to ask "If you could give yourself from however many years ago advice, what would it be?" The beauty of it being a hypothetical is that you can take some time to really think about it and, as a bonus, you never really have to answer it. I don't think I ever answered it definitively.

It seems the universe, with its ubiquitous sense of humor, decided to put a deadline on this question.

So, committing a cardinal sin in reading, I dig deep. If an adult could have given me some advice before I had to confront mortality. SOMETHING. ANYTHING. Now is the time to say it.

Here's what I came up with. I hope it gives you a little comfort, no matter your current situation. We are all children on a world that was built well before we were around anyway.

It seems you are in for quite the adventure. There's going to be a lot out of your control and that's not your fault in any way. Try to have fun if you can. It makes it better.