Why do flowers bloom?

I admit that I may have been lonely. I know that loneliness can produce bolts of hot pain, a pain which, if it stays hot enough for long enough, can begin to simulate, or to provoke - take your pick- an apprehension of the divine.
-Maggie Nelson, Bluets

And so it was for me. Which brings me to my final suspect of this investigation: the mystic.

My goal so far has been to determine one thing: how can I apply meaning to the events in my life? In the previous two essays, I examined the engineer and the artist within me to find the answer.

The engineer wasn't able to help - they just wanted control.

The artist got warmer, but they were too preoccupied with finding quality in things, not meaning.

But the mystic doesn't want control, nor do they care for the quality of things. The mystic just wants to know itself.

If I learned anything from the engineer and the artist though, it's that an idea must leave the mind before it can be judged. This is always the first step. A hypothesis is unproven till tested. I can't tell if an idea will make a good piece of art or not until it's been made. And I can't truly say for certain if I know myself without a way to externalize my self-image.

The attempt to externalize that self-image is where my story with the mystic begins.

I'm willing to bet the majority of people don't actually understand how tarot cards work. They typically divide people into two camps: the people who believe in them too much, and those who dismiss them entirely. The former can begin to fall into the trap of believing that the cards themselves have a sort of "magic energy" or "vibration" that imbues them with a power. The impulse to find meaning is well intentioned, just misdirected at the object itself.

But the latter, those who discredit them entirely, are handicapping their own ability for self-understanding. Their argument relies on two main points:

• The cards are drawn at random, a fact that can be proven statistically.
• The meanings of the cards are so vague that they can be interpreted in almost infinite ways, guaranteeing that you can always relate it to your current situation.

Both of these statements are true and are why I know the magic here isn't in the cards.* But if I look closely enough, I find a dangerous unspoken assumption: since the card that's drawn is meaningless -> my interpretation of the card is meaningless.

Tell that to the man who believed a certain card meant he would never find love.

My interpretation is the meaning I'm looking for. Not because some unseen hand guided the right card to the top of a deck, but because it's a confirmation of a belief I had already held deep down and wasn't aware of. The fact that the cards are vague enough to interpret multiple ways is actually the whole point. To disregard our interpretations is to lose faith in ourselves.

It's been a long time since I've dabbled in things like tarot. I view it now like spiritual training wheels. I don't need the card to observe my inner beliefs because I learned to use the whole world as a mirror. I can learn the same things by observing how an emotionless rain can fill me with nostalgia. Or how I started avoiding dive bars with too many dart boards. Or how I pushed you away for no reason at all.

Observing myself like this made me realize there was something inside me contorting my desires. The question was how do I rip it out? If my tooth had a cavity, I don't think I'd be able to pull it out myself either, but at least I could get at it with my hands.

Unfortunately, I can't use my hands. The only tool I have against the mind is the mind itself. So, to learn how to change things, I turned to meditation.

Zen meditation, which is the particular flavor of meditation I practice, aims at stopping all thoughts in the mind. I had to learn how to let things pass right through me without leaving a mark, like a knife trying to cut water. This was how I was going to rip it out. Not with force, but by learning how to unclench and watch it leave on its own.

This skill wasn't just something I could use to let go of baggage though. It became the tool I used for understanding the self. Like making great art, knowing the self is a reductive process, not an additive one.

Over 3 years ago I went through a period of time where I tried throwing away everything I owned. It started with just my TV. It felt so good I got rid of my furniture too. Next was the clothing I didn't wear. Then it was my DJ board. Then wall art. Old shoes. Knick-Knacks. Recorders. Cards. Gifts. Bags. Balls. Plates. Then suddenly it was my mementos of you. Those were hard. I still remember them. Then came my creative tools, like pencils and markers. That's where I could go no further. I'm made of the things I can't let go of.

Luckily, I was able to learn how to let go of the emotions that were hijacking my desires. Unfortunately, it was only the emotions I was letting go of. When they came up, I could detach and let it subside, but give it a couple days and they'd be back. I was cutting the grass in hopes of getting rid of the weeds. I needed to find the root.

That brings me to my most recent attempt at knowing the self: talk therapy.

The idea of therapy always seemed off putting to me. I valued independence highly and therapy sounded like a form of defeat. An admittance that I couldn't become the man I wanted with just my own determination. But I was only fooling myself.

When nobody is asking me, I understand perfectly well who I am and how I feel. Once asked though, I suddenly have no idea. This should be cause to suspect that I never really knew in the first place. Inside private thought, I can miss or completely obfuscate the reasonings behind things. It's just too much of a mess in my mind, and my focus too narrow to hold it all in sight at once. This is why journaling helps. It gets the thoughts outside of me so I can start organizing them and find logical gaps I never would have seen had it stayed in my mind. But journaling, unlike therapy, doesn't force my reasoning in front of another person. (unless I make it public, but then it's art). The social pressure created by becoming the object of observation makes us admit to the things we were lying to ourselves about. A cloudy sky must give its water to the lake to see its own reflection clearly.

Therapy forced me to follow the breadcrumbs through the forest of my mind more diligently. I originally told myself I pushed people away because I valued freedom. But that wasn't quite it. I had to admit I actually valued control and was just calling it freedom. What is love if not giving control over parts of myself to someone else?

But further investigation showed control wasn't really the desire either. Control was the tool I used to gain safety. The desire for safety is the seed which sprouts all fears.

And there I had it. I followed the emotion right down to its root: the semblance of safety provided by an illusion of control, manifesting itself as a fear of dependence on anyone but myself.

And from there, I could release it from my mind, like a reed sliding out of earth softened by water.

Now if only I could let go of the love. Unfortunately, I think that might be what I'm made of.

As for the opening quote, I'd like to point out that loneliness doesn't require being alone. And anyway, I pick provoke.

-John Fitzpatrick

P.S. Unknowingly (and in reverse order) the mystic had acquired all 3 parts needed to complete the same iterative loop that my inner engineer and artist used. By using the world as my mirror I was collecting data about my emotional landscape. By using talk therapy, I was analyzing these emotions and creating a hypothesis as to what caused them. By meditating on this hypothesis, I could test if they were truly part of me or not by letting them go. Then repeat. I'll wrap this up next week with a conclusion that ties all three personas together, and answers the original question: why did that router bit almost fall out?

*Another clue here is just how many things can be used in place of tarot cards. Horoscopes. I-ching. The Bible. Flipping books to random pages. Lucky pennies. What's the one thing they all have in common? The viewer.