Sometimes it takes several drafts to figure out what you're even writing about. This is something I both love and hate about writing. The hate part mostly happens when I sit down, intending to write something worth sharing, only to churn through a few thousand words and discard all of them because they aren't quite right. Sometimes, the not-quite-right that can be refined with a little bit of editing. But other times, the not-quite-right is the basic idea, the foundation of what you're trying to communicate
But the part that I love is if you just keep writing, eventually you get to the answer.
October was a hectic month. But amid the chaos of sickness and visitors and travel and caring for friends and loved ones who experienced injuries, I realized something - The Present Pursuit desperately needed some structure, a focal point, a common thread to pull everything together. Or, as Maia Toll put it in this newsletter, "Creativity needs constraint."
Turns out, writing about whatever I want, whenever I want, usually means writing nothing at all. As someone who has a hard time deciding what to order at a restaurant when the menu has more than five things on it, I really shouldn't be surprised that trying to write a newsletter that could be about literally anything simply overwhelmed me into inaction. If I wanted this newsletter to be consistent and sustainable, it needed a little structure.
After much hemming and hawing, I settled on what I thought would/should be the unifying theme for my writing - my secular use of divination (mostly tarot) as a tool for reflection and mindfulness - and set about writing an introduction for the incoming structure. The essay itched. The words were wording, but something was still missing, something about the concept itself.
When I feel lost, I always come back to “Why?” Why Tarot? I had answered this question already - because I enjoy talking about tarot, because there's still a large gap in truly secular, skeptical tarot content that I felt like I could help fill, because I felt like there were lots of topics I could relate to through tarot as a lens - but none of those answers felt satisfactory, none of those answers scratched the itch I was encountering in my writing.
I realized it’s because my question wasn't quite right. I thought I was asking myself "Why tarot as a theme for The Present Pursuit?" but the question that was really sitting in my chest was "Why tarot at all?" If my goal isn't to become a tarot teacher and tarot isn't a spiritual practice1 for me, what need or desire does it satisfy in order to explain it being such an important personal practice? I mentally wandered around until I landed back at the name I chose for this newsletter - The Present Pursuit.
Tarot is just a practice that helps me be present with what is.
And there it is, the bedrock of what I want my writing to be about. As the chaos of the modern world swirls around us, asking us to constantly take in more information, more content, more outrage: how can I be more present with what simply is right now?
Generally speaking, I believe that being present with what is requires an acceptance of nuance, some capacity for radical compassion, and the ability to hold multiple truths at once. All of that is easier said than done, but I'm committed to exploring how to cultivate those traits, and hoping to connect with others who are interested in the same.
All that to say, you'll still be seeing some writing about tarot here, but only in its capacity to help us be present with what is.
If you’ve been with me for a minute and this is a re-introduction to the newsletter instead of an introduction, you might recall that I had intended to publish something every week of October. And didn’t. My sincere apologies if I let anyone down. But while I didn’t make my personal publishing deadlines, I did continue to sit down and write throughout the month, lots of journaling and also draft after draft of this essay. It was through that process that I finally arrived at this conclusion, that will shape the future of this newsletter. I’m reminded of this quote by Joan Didion:
“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” 2
There is little in life that makes sense to me until I’ve had a chance to write it down. When I was younger and foolishly confident about what I thought I knew, I rarely needed more than one draft of revisions. The more I live, learn, and experience, the longer it takes to understand what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling, “what I want and what I fear”. As I stumble through multiple drafts of everything these days, I’m trying to remember that it’s part of the process of understanding, that it’s a feature not a bug, and be grateful for the opportunity to do so instead of frustrated with the pace.
Feel free to use these questions as journal prompts, tarot spreads, or discussion starters in the comments.
What area of your life could use more structure or constraint in order to flourish?
What might that constraint look like?
How could implementing this new structure facilitate positive change?
What is something you thought you understood, but maybe deserves a second look?
What might be lying under the surface?
Honestly, the jury is still out on whether or not I consider myself a spiritual person in general. I'm sure there will be more writing on this somewhere down the road.
This essay was first published in The New York Times, Dec. 5, 1976. If you encounter a paywall issue with that link, you can find it republished here, on lithub.