Conserving energy by discarding belief in the self

Conserving energy by discarding belief in the self 2021-02-28T00:09:15+02:00

Agger (Photo: Camelia Elias)

It occurs to me that not believing anything is a way of conserving energy. I’m out on the harbor buying fish and watching the local birds. They sit in a circle. This is not part of a magic ritual called ‘loving myself’ with top self-validation on the agenda. These birds are conserving their energy. They don’t believe in themselves, or put effort into believing in themselves and in how they can stay sharp and committed to reaching their ultimate goal: $1000000 by the end of the month. ‘The only condition or success is that you love yourself,’ the loud voices herald. ‘Then you can fly.’ Now I’m rolling in the winter grass, as I simply can’t stop from laughing.

Agger (Photo: Camelia Elias)

Why don’t we ever learn from the birds? Conserve your energy by believing nothing at all, and then take off. The trouble with most of our world is not that we need to shift into different gears where beliefs are concerned. The trouble is that we all hold beliefs, ever so shifting already, but get thoroughly upset when others don’t share them. Damn. Just when we thought we were so brilliant…

So it’s not a question of reframing what we believe, thus investing energy in the next loud voice about the benefits of loving ourselves, cheerfully riding the shallow thinking train because so many others like that too, believing it’s good… Believing is very tiring business. If you want to conserve your energy, you stop believing altogether. This way you’re free from having to defend yourself against yourself or others. You’re free to fly and do your own thing, million dollar style or less. What’s it to it? When you’re free, you’re free.

Otto Tragy Playing Cards, 1910 (Photo: Camelia Elias)

I cast cards for idiotic ideas on a daily basis. I entertain myself. Today the 9-carré had this to say about how we conserve energy in the face of investing it in utterly useless beliefs, the belief in oneself being the top shit seductive ticket to some promised garden of Eden.

Otto Tragy Playing Cards, 1910 (Photo: Camelia Elias)

Just look at these cards. I love them. If anybody in the pack of the playing cards set will not fall for crap narratives, then that would be the King of Spades. This one doesn’t believe in himself. Who is he at war with? The King of Hearts. This one believes everything you tell him. But here comes the card of 2 Spades, with the black king presiding at the top.

Once the shallow emotions are exposed, as per the cards of the troubled heart in the 7 Hearts being quite convinced of itself à la 3 straight Hearts, we have the King of Spades pointing to the core of what is wrong with the path of belief. 6 Spades at the center are flanked by a group of ‘brilliant’ ideas in the 8 Diamonds. I put ‘brilliant’ in inverted commas, as we’re here with 8 Diamonds besieged by the erroneous work of the heart (3 Hearts mirror 7 Clubs, with the 8 Diamonds coming out of everything that’s wrong with the path of belief, the 6 Spades).

Conserve your energy is still the message. 5 Diamonds at the bottom testify to what trouble we get in when we feed our bodies with emotional crap, the belief in the self being quite a serious disease (‘I don’t love myself, I must love myself, I must forgive myself, I must pamper myself, I must indulge, I must hold on to my beliefs… oy veh!)

3 Spades in the wings are a warning. On matters of beliefs, I’ll go with the King of Spades any time over the King of Hearts, when this King is invested in taking others down the wrong path.

I’m not even going to say that you should check with your beliefs, because I’m not into shoulds. I’m with the birds, conserving their energy until the moment when they spread their wings to fly free of useless concepts. Believe nothing.

Stay tuned for cartomantic activities free of beliefs at Aradia Academy.

About Camelia Elias
Camelia Elias, PhD & Dr.Phil., is a former university professor. After 20 years in academia, she left her career to pursue her interests in teaching and writing on the philosophy and practice of reading cards. She works with contemplative arts, oracular language, and martial arts cartomancy and Zen at her own school, Aradia Academy. You can read more about the author here.

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