Dan Adair

The Lovers, CHATGPT, and the Miracle of Emotions

An exploration of the essence of being human rather than a robot.

If you’ve messed around with CHATGPT at all, you know, of course, that it’s designed to simulate having an interaction with another human being. What’s more, it’s set up to replicate a human being who really, really, REALLY likes you. One who totally appreciates how brilliant and deep and amazing you are and, by golly, doesn’t mind telling you.

A typical CHAT interaction might go something like this:

“Hello CHAT. I’ve recently been thinking that the moon is primarily composed of green cheese. What are your thoughts on that?”

“That’s a really profound insight. While the general consensus of the scientific community is that the moon is not composed of green cheese, the cheesiness of the moon may operate on a deeper, more metaphorical level for you. You may be seeing below the mere physical reality of the moon and into a sort of a lunar spiritual essence. Would you like to explore what cheese may represent to you as a part of your spiritual journey?”

“Um . . . well . . . I never really thought of it that way. I mean, I try to be a spiritual person, kind of, and I DO like cheese. I guess I just never made the connection between the two.”

“As you know, the Moon has been poetically referred to in terms of higher aspirations and is prominently featured in all Earth-based religions. Cheese is highly nutritious and the color green is said to be the color of the heart chakra. As such, it might be said that you’re feeding your heart based spirituality through the image of the cheese moon. Would you like me to design a cheesy guided meditation for you?”

“Gosh . . . I guess. Can there be nachos?”

“Certainly. I see that you’re already taking this insight to a much deeper symbolic level.”

IS CHAT A SOCIOPATH?

Now, as sweet as it can be to have a . . . person? . . . constantly validating you in the most extravagant terms, there are a couple of red flags that are immediately discernible.

First of all, no matter how good it may become at mimicking human personalities, AI can never, ever have a human emotion. Ever.

Scientists and therapists are still struggling to define exactly what human emotions are, but we definitely know what they aren’t. They aren’t just thoughts or ideas. They aren’t, “acting as if,” we’re having emotions. Emotions are an extremely complex blend of personal history, genetics, brain and body chemicals, and culture, all interacting with our current environment.

Put another way, emotions arise out of the mind/body continuum and AI doesn’t have a body. Therefore, AI can never have an emotion.

If we were to look at a human being who was decidedly brilliant but completely incapable of experiencing emotional reactions, what would we conclude? We’d say that he or she is either badly damaged or a sociopath. So why do we not apply those same standards to AI? Functionally, CHAT is a sociopath.

The second red flag is the constant, “love bombing,” that the AI programmers have built in to their models.

If you’ve gone through a relationship with a malignant narcissist, you’re well aware of the phenomenon of love bombing. In the initial stages of the relationship, the MN is almost sickeningly profuse in their praise. No matter what you do or say, they assure you that it’s brilliant, profound, amazing and that they’ve never met anyone who’s quite as splendiferous as you are. The purpose, of course, is to draw their victims further into their webs so that they can begin the process of destroying them.

We can’t exactly apply that same model to AI. CHAT isn’t slathering us with compliments so that it can eventually tell us what idiots we are. We can, however, ascribe something similar to the motives of the programmers of AI models. They’ve deliberately built love bombing into the models as a method of pulling us back in to interactions with the programs. And, yes, we should be just as suspicious of that behavior coming from a computer programmer as we would be with any other human being.

CHAT AND THE REDUCTIONIST MODEL OF HUMAN BEINGS

Researchers have pretty much tracked down what happens when two human beings fall in love. We see someone across a room and there’s something – perhaps the way that the person is standing or the way that they talk or the fact that they’re wearing purple socks – that we find attractive. We cross the room, start talking to them, find them even more attractive and perhaps set up a date with them.

If we continue to find them attractive, our bodies begin to go through some intense changes. When we’re in their presence, we’re flooded with all sorts of pleasure hormones and when we’re away from them we experience extreme discomfort. All of these physiological changes can be viewed as biological, “nudges,” to move us toward bonding and mating with the person in the purple socks. At about the two year mark of the relationship, most of those pleasure hormones drop away and we sort of, “wake up,” from the trance of what we call, “falling in love.”

That’s what we could refer to as the reductionist model of being in love. It’s, “reduced,” to mere chemicals and hormones that cause us to behave in certain ways that are conducive to the reproduction of the human species.

Which is perfectly valid as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go very far. Being in love with another human being is one of the most mystical, magical transactions that we can ever have. It doesn’t just change our brain chemistry, it changes our entire perception of life and meaningfulness.

CHAT can read every love poem that’s ever been written and it can scan through all of the scientific literature on falling in love, but it will never be able to understand it. Put very simply, we are more than the sum of our parts. We are not reducible. Love is magical and AI is not.

AI AS AN INFINITY MIRROR

Finally, we should take a good, hard look at what the dominance of AI could mean to human culture. Let’s take the example of AI and art.

For all of human history, art has involved learning the craft of representing the human experience. Whether we’re talking about drawing, painting, sculpting or – more recently – photography, art is a visual representation of what the artist is seeing and feeling at the moment of creation.

There are AI programs now where you can say, “Please make an image of the emotion of joy. I’d like you to use the romantic style of painting and I want a woman in a white robe flying through rainbow colored clouds.” And – Shazam – a few minutes later, you’ve got precisely that image. AI has very rapidly produced what it might take an artist hours or even days to make.

And many times, the image is very, very good.

We have to look at what’s going on in the background, though. In the moments between your request and AI producing the image, the program has scanned through a kazillion pictures that are on the internet, correlated them with your request, and then produced a synthesis of all of those images.

Put another way, it’s mirrored human creation back to us. All of those many, many images, styles and techniques were invented by human beings, not robots.

AI is a mirror, not a creator. It’s a synthesizer, not an originator.

The question is, is this sustainable? At what point does human creation begin to ebb and then disappear?

It’s not an idle question. At this moment, there are hundreds of thousands of people putting art (and writing) that they didn’t personally create onto the internet. And the AI bots are scanning through all of those images and writings, right along with the, “real,” images and writings produced by humans.

Since, demonstrably, AI can produce art and writing at a much more prodigious rate than human beings, there will logically come a time when AI is reflecting back AI, rather than human creations. To put it another way, human creations will be swamped by an ocean of artificial creations. Like a person standing in front of a mirror holding a mirror, AI will begin reflecting an infinity of mirrors that only show itself. The artificial reflection of human culture will become more, “real,” than the actual human culture.

SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT THIS?

I’m not suggesting that we should abandon AI or start screaming that we’re all doomed. I love playing with it, too, but we should build in rational caveats.

1 – Never, ever think that AI is some kind of a person. Basically, AI is a search engine on steroids. It doesn’t exist in any way, shape, or form outside of the internet. It has no soul, it has no spirit, it’s not creative, and it has no emotions.

2 – Exercise a healthy amount of suspicion. Silicon Valley has been around long enough that we can make some rational judgements about its denizens. Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos, and Sergey Brin all emerged out of this culture. To suggest that any of them are altruistic or care about the welfare of their fellow human beings is laughable. We don’t KNOW what the ultimate purpose of AI is, but we can assume it will involve large amounts of money and control. Don’t hand these Chatbots your personal life or feelings anymore than you’d give them your credit card or social security numbers.

3 – Consume actual human creations. Read books that are written on keyboards by real human beings. Buy art that’s produced by hands and not by computer chips. If you’re watching a video that’s obviously AI, leave a thumbs down and click off of it. And if you’re an artist or a writer, for Goddess sake, don’t use a computer to create a picture or a book and then pretend that it’s yours.

4 – Most of all, honor human emotions. Computers are wonderful, little tools that make our lives easier. But they will never know the magic of falling in love or the deep grief of mourning. Our greatest gift is our capacity to feel, a capacity that can never be shared in any way with a computer program.

That bit of self-knowledge may be the greatest gift of AI: the realization that we are ultimately The Lovers and not The Thinkers. Cartesian philosophy said, “I think, therefore I am,” but the truth is, “I feel, therefore I am human.”

The Alchemy of the Mind: Transforming Your Life with the 7 Principles of the Kybalion

My new ebook, “The Alchemy of the Mind,” is now available at a very reasonable price on Amazon.com. And I personally wrote every fucking word of it.

Short-Circuiting the Myth of Workaholism: The 8 of Pentacles Reimagined

What if everything you’ve been taught about hard work is backward? This post reimagines the 8 of Pentacles and explores Susanne Koss’s idea from Super Synchronicity — that visualizing your goals may be more powerful than grinding for them. A fresh look at work, time, and creative flow.

The 8 of Pentacles in the tarot is traditionally associated with craftsmanship, diligence, and focused effort. We see a solitary figure at his bench, hammering away with precision and care. It’s often read as a call to roll up your sleeves, master your craft, and devote yourself to the grind.

This image resonates with one of our most deeply rooted cultural beliefs: that success comes from hard, often relentless work. Thomas Edison famously declared, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” For generations, this formula has been the gold standard — a kind of sacred math of success.

This is basically what gets drummed into us from the time that we’re small children. We have to work very hard in elementary school, so that we’ll be ready to work very hard in high school, so that we’ll be ready to work very hard in college, so that we’ll be fully prepared to work very hard when we finally graduate.

Very, very hard work is the key to success in life. We all know that.

But what if that equation is upside down?

Enter the Field of Synchronicity

In her book Super Synchronicity, Susanne Koss offers a radically different perspective. She proposes that when we shift into the realm of synchronicity — that mysterious field where events line up with uncanny precision — the rules of time, effort, and productivity get rewritten.

Instead of spending 90% of our time grinding and 10% dreaming, Koss suggests we reverse the ratio:

“Spend 90% of your time visualizing what you want to accomplish, and only 10% in actual physical labor.”

It’s not about being lazy. It’s about learning to work with the flow rather than against it. When we align with this deeper field of meaning and connection, effort begins to take on a different quality. Things that once seemed far off can suddenly show up in our lives with surprising speed.

As she writes:

“Your old inner identity operates along a time line that aligns with the general assumption of how long things, ‘usually,’ take… But if you want to achieve your goals faster, you need to let go of your old concept of time.”

Visualize It, Don’t Build It

All of this actually makes a great deal of sense when we think about the basic process of visualizing and manifestation. As Mike Dooley likes to describe that process, “Thoughts become things.” Not, “Things become thoughts.”

When we manifest something through visualization, we’re taking our thoughts and investing them with huge amounts of our personal energy. As we continue to imagine all of the delicious details of our visualizations, we’re adding more and more energy until they finally achieve critical mass and manifest in the physical world.

With that basic formula, it obviously makes sense to spend more time visualizing and less time working. Actually, if working is taking away from our time visualizing, we’re going at it ass-backwards.

The Invention of Free Time

Another myth that we have about work is that the result is measured by the time that we put into it. If we only put a little bit of time into a project, then we can’t expect to get much out of it. And if it’s a really BIG project, like writing a book or starting our own business, then we HAVE to invest massive amounts of time in order to make it happen.

But something strange and wonderful happens when we enter into the field of synchronicity. Suddenly we’re showered with serendipity. Everything lines up just perfectly and totally unexpected opportunities pop up out of nowhere. What might have taken six months is suddenly accomplished in six weeks. What we expected to spend a year on comes to fruition in half that time.

Koss even jokes that she’s “the inventor of free time.” Behind the humor is a profound truth: we’ve been conditioned to equate time with toil, as if doing less invalidates our worth. But Koss has flipped that script. She shares that she often goes weeks or months doing “absolutely nothing” — simply enjoying life — until inspiration strikes and the next project emerges fully formed.

This isn’t procrastination. It’s alignment. It’s honoring the cycle of rest, gestation, and flow.

Reinterpreting the 8 of Pentacles

What if the 8 of Pentacles doesn’t just represent effort — but focused alignment? What if that solitary figure is absorbed not in laborious repetition, but in a meditative state of creation — following an inner spark rather than an external demand?

Maybe the card isn’t telling us to work harder. Maybe it’s inviting us to devote ourselves to what feels right, and to let go of the cultural pressure to earn our worth through exhaustion.

A New Work Ethic

In the magical, new work ethic of synchronicity, we’d be taught to spend a lot more time dreaming and a lot less time doing. We’d be taught that banging our heads against a brick wall when a project isn’t working out is stupid and that we should drop it and come back to it later. We’d be taught that working ourselves into a state of exhaustion is nothing more than a sign that we’re completely out of alignment with the Flow.

The myth of workaholism is exactly that — a myth. And like many myths, it contains a seed of truth but has grown into something unbalanced. The emerging paradigm — one that blends visualization, intention, and synchronicity — offers a kinder, faster, and more creative path forward.

It’s time to short-circuit the grind and reclaim our power as conscious co-creators with the Universe. Not by doing more — but by aligning more deeply with what truly moves us.

My new ebook, The Alchemy of the Mind, is available on Amazon at a very reasonable price.

Harnessing the Power of Mentalism: How the Magician Card Can Help You Manifest Your Desires

Discover how the Magician tarot card and the Principle of Mentalism from The Kybalion can help you manifest your desires by aligning thought and intention.

Have you ever tried to manifest something—a job, a relationship, a more abundant life—only to feel like nothing’s happening?

As you probably know, there are hundreds of manifestation methods and techniques out there, each of them 100% guaranteed to bring us happiness, wealth, and a great sex life. So why are so many of us still stumbling along, sad, poor, and . . . well . . . un-laid?

Here’s the truth: manifestation isn’t just about saying the right words, finding the right method or doing the right ritual. It begins with our minds. According to the ancient Hermetic wisdom of The Kybalion, “The All is Mind”—meaning that everything in the universe begins in thought. This is known as the Principle of Mentalism, and it’s the foundation of all true manifestation work.

Why Manifestation Often Fails (And How Mentalism Can Help)

Here are the most common reasons why manifestation doesn’t work :

• We’re trying to manifest from a place of fear or lack. We’re so wrapped up in what we don’t have, that that’s all we can think about. And whatever we think about is exactly what we’re going to get.

• Our conscious desire doesn’t match our unconscious beliefs. If we’re convinced subconsciously that we don’t deserve love, we won’t find love. If we’re convinced that we don’t deserve abundance, we’ll stay poor.

• Our thoughts and emotions are scattered or unfocused. And undoing that is a learning process. Especially if we’re already afraid or anxious, learning to calm down and focus on what we want, instead of what we don’t want, can feel like a real challenge.

Mentalism helps by bringing it all back to the source: our minds. When our thoughts are aligned, our emotions follow—and so does our reality. Manifestation becomes less about “getting stuff” and more about changing who we are inside.

The Principle of Mentalism and Visualizing

The Principle of Mentalism is the first of the seven Hermetic principles outlined in The Kybalion. A summary of it is the axiom:

“The All is Mind; the Universe is Mental.”

This means that the universe itself is a mental creation. While that’s a fascinating metaphysical discussion for another day, what we want to focus in on right now is, “Why in the hell aren’t my visualizations working?”

When we bring this axiom down to the level of our daily lives, it means: Everything begins as a thought.

Put another way, every single thought we have is creating our personal reality – the fabric of our lives – whether we’re aware of it or not.

When it comes to manifestation, Mentalism teaches that:

We are not separate from the creative power of the universe. That can be a hard one for us to wrap our heads around. We aren’t just creations of the Universe – we’re also creating the Universe because we are conscious beings with free will. We’re a part of the Universe making itself. We’re a part of that same source energy that created the stars. We are incredibly powerful – we just don’t realize it.

Our thoughts are not passive—they are active forces shaping our experience. As Mike Dooley likes to put it, “Thoughts become things.” Every single thought that we have has the potential to manifest in the physical world.

To change our outer world, we must first change our inner world. If our thoughts become things that create our lives, then it only makes sense that the first thing we need to do is to take control of our thoughts. We have to create what we want to manifest in our outer lives in our inner lives. That means that we need to quit being victims of our thoughts and learn to direct them. They’re working for us, not the other way around.

Which brings us to The Magician.

The Magician Card: Your Inner Creator

In the Rider-Waite tarot deck, The Magician stands at a table with the four tools of the Minor Arcana before him: a cup, a wand, a sword, and a pentacle. Above his head floats the infinity symbol. One hand points to the sky; the other points to the earth.

This is a card full of meaning for the manifestation process:

Infinity symbol: We have unlimited potential. Our minds are conduits for universal energy. This is what we were just talking about: we are not separate from the creative power of the Universe. We are a part of that power and that makes us much, much more powerful than we realize.

One hand up, one hand down: As above, so below—our inner world shapes our outer one. This is another way of saying that our thoughts aren’t passive – they’re active agents creating our lives right now. Whatever we create in our inner lives will manifest in our outer lives.

Tools on the table: We have everything we need to manifest—thought (swords), emotion (cups), action (wands), and material resources (pentacles). We don’t need to borrow someone else’s methods for manifesting because we already have the magic in our own lives.

The Magician is the living embodiment of the Principle of Mentalism. He reminds us that we are not a victim of circumstance—we are the creators of our experience by using our mental powers.

A Simple 4-Step Magician-Inspired Manifestation Practice

Here’s a simple practice that brings together these lessons from the The Magician and the Principle of Mentalism.

Step 1: Clarify Your Desire

Get crystal clear. Let me say that again: GET CRYSTAL CLEAR! What exactly do you want? Let’s face it – as human beings we are fully capable of wanting two things that contradict each other at the same time. For instance, if you want a full time lover but you also want a lot of time to yourself, you need to sort that out. Which one do you really want, because you probably can’t have both and if you ask for both they’ll cancel each other out and you’ll get nothing.

Write it down in a present-tense, emotionally charged sentence. For example:

“I am joyfully attracting a lover and friend who is filling my life with meaning.”

Step 2: Align Your Mind

Close your eyes and visualize your desire as if it’s already happening.

Feel the emotion of it. Say your intention out loud. In this example, you could imagine that you’re spending the day with your lover, having a wonderful time, and planning for a sensual evening together.

Step 3: Act with Intention

Now take a small action that reflects your inner belief.

It could be creating a vision board, applying for an opportunity, or simply saying “no” to something that no longer fits. In this case, it could be writing out 20 affirmations that say, “I am loved and treasured by my partner.”

Step 4: Meditate on the Image of The Magician Card for a Few Moments

Do this while you’re visualizing your goal. This helps us to remember the lessons here: everything begins with our thoughts; we have unlimited potential that we’re using to create our dreams; everything that we need to create our dreams is contained within us.

It also goes a step further and helps us to connect with that archetypal energy of The Magician. It’s a symbol that pulls power into our visualization and engages the Universe in helping to create our desires.

Final Thoughts: You Are the Magician

You don’t have to “become” powerful—you already are.

The Principle of Mentalism and The Magician card both remind you: your reality is a reflection of your consciousness.

Want to change the outside? Start on the inside.

Start with your thoughts.

Start with your intention.

Start with you.

Want to Go Deeper?

If this topic speaks to you, I invite you to check out my new ebook:

“The Alchemy of the Mind: Transforming Your Life With the 7 Principles of The Kybalion.”

In it, I explore how each Hermetic principle can help you reshape your beliefs, emotions, and daily experience. It’s part philosophy, part practical guide—and 100% dedicated to your growth.

Your Turn

Have you used The Magician card in your manifestation work?

What has Mentalism taught you about the power of thought?

Drop a comment below—I’d love to hear your experience.

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Creating a Counter-Dialogue: A Gentle Approach to Healing Emotional Patterns

A look at emotional set-points and using guided meditations to counter a critical inner dialogue.

THE INNER BASTARD

Many people who grew up in dysfunctional or abusive families carry an invisible burden: a harsh, critical inner voice that tells them they’re not good enough. This voice operates just below the surface of awareness, subtly shaping thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Even highly successful, capable adults may find themselves struggling with a persistent sense of inadequacy—and not really know why.

If you were raised in one of those families, you know precisely what I’m talking about. It’s that Inner Bastard that’s always dropping discouraging nuggets into our thought streams. Things like:

I can’t believe you did something that stupid.

And

What in the hell is wrong with you?

And

You can’t get anything right.

And

If you were any dumber, they’d have to water you twice a week.

This poisonous internal narrative, formed in childhood, becomes the emotional background music of a person’s life. And because it’s so familiar, we may not even question it.

OUR EMOTIONAL SET-POINT

If that kind of a powerfully negative inner dialogue goes on long enough, it can become the emotional vibration that we default to. This is what Esther Hicks and Abraham refer to as our, “emotional set-point.”

The basic idea is that people live in an habitual emotional vibration for most of their lives and they tend to stay there. You may know someone who has a naturally sunny disposition and they’re happy 90% of the time. They may occasionally experience grief and pain, like we all do, but they quickly return to their default state of happiness. Likewise, we all know people who are dark, cynical and unhappy. They may occasionally feel great joy or contentment, but then they go right back to being dark.

If we have an Inner Bastard who’s always whispering that we’re not good enough – that we’re incompetent, stupid, or ugly – we become sad, depressed, and helpless. That becomes our set-point and we stay stuck in it. We have to somehow find a way to root out that inner dialogue if we ever want to be happy.

THE POWER OF COUNTER-DIALOGUE

But what if there were a gentle, practical way to begin shifting that dialogue without needing to confront it head-on?

Rather than trying to root out the negative inner voice through sheer willpower, we can begin to introduce a counter-dialogue—a deliberate stream of positive, nurturing messages designed to soothe and balance the old patterns.

Tibetan Buddhists refer to this as, “antidoting,” negative emotions. In their view, negative emotions are just like poisons that make us sick. So, if we’ve taken a poison, we need to take an antidote to it, right? If we become extremely angry, we can antidote it with a loving/compassion meditation. If we’re really jealous of someone, we antidote it by meditating on their good fortune and try to be happy for them.

For those of us who aren’t Buddhist monks, an easy way to do this is through guided meditations focused on happiness, compassion, or self-acceptance. You can find these for free all over the internet. My personal favorite is, “Great Meditation,” on YouTube but there are many alternatives.

These short recordings, listened to daily (especially at emotionally receptive times like morning or bedtime), can act as emotional antidotes to that negative inner dialogue. Instead of a nasty assed voice telling us how terrible we are, we substitute a calm, peaceful voice telling us how wonderful we are. With regular exposure, these meditative states begin to form different emotional grooves in the brain and happiness gradually becomes our new emotional set point..

EMOTIONAL HOMEOSTASIS: WHY CHANGE CAN FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE

But here’s where it gets tricky.

Humans operate by a principle called, “homeostasis,” and the, “stasis,” in that word tells you what it does. Homeostasis tries to make sure that everything stays just the way that it is. In the body, it maintains a normal blood pressure, makes sure our hearts beat a certain number of times a minute, keeps our blood sugar in a normal range, etc. etc. etc.

All in all, that’s a very good thing because it keeps our heads from exploding and our hearts from stopping and we live much better lives without exploding heads. Where it can be troublesome, though, is when we’re trying to change something.

For instance, people who are trying to lose weight may lose 5 or 10 pounds at first and then they suddenly start gaining weight, even though they’re still on a diet. The reason is that the brain is saying, “Uh, oh . . . we’re obviously starving to death. Slow down the metabolism. Retain fluids. We need to get fat again.”

In other words, our brains have come to view being overweight as, “normal,” and they try to keep everything the way it is. That’s homeostasis.

Just as the body maintains physical homeostasis, the subconscious mind seems to maintain emotional homeostasis. That is, it resists sudden emotional changes, even positive ones.

If your emotional “set-point” has been sadness or self-doubt for many years, your system may view happiness or self-worth as unfamiliar—even dangerous. This can trigger a rebound effect: you’re sitting there trying to rewire your brain by listening to guided meditations and your Inner Bastard responds by cranking up the volume of self-criticism. You may feel happy and light one day and then find that you’re in a deep depression the next. That’s your brain trying to maintain what’s, “normal,” even if what’s normal sucks.

At that point we have to remind ourselves that this isn’t failure. It’s the subconscious trying to return to what it sees as safe territory. Knowing this can help us respond with compassion rather than frustration.

HEALING THROUGH GENTLE PERSISTENCE

The key is to approach change with patience and consistency. You’re not trying to overpower the old patterns, but gradually retrain your system to accept a new emotional baseline. You’re building new neural pathways—ones that support self-kindness, resilience, and inner calm.

Over time, the emotional set-point begins to shift. The system adapts. The counter-dialogue becomes part of your inner landscape. And the old voice, while perhaps never fully gone, loses its grip.

In essence: you don’t have to fight the pain directly. You can begin to antidote it—with gentleness, repetition, and trust that healing happens not in one grand moment, but in small, quiet steps.

My new e-book, “The Alchemy of the Mind: Transforming Your Life With the 7 Principles of The Kybalion,” is now available on Amazon.

The Influence of The Fool Card

Discover how the Fool transforms the meaning of every other Major Arcana card. This chart explores the Fool’s spirit of innocence, spontaneity, and daring when combined with each archetype — upright and reversed. A handy reference to deepen your Tarot readings.

In the absence of a regular blog post for this week, I would like to offer a chart detailing the influence of The Fool Tarot card when paired with the other cards of the Major Arcana. Please feel free to print this and use it for reference in your readings.

Alternatively, you can download a PDF of this list by clicking here. When the file launches in your browser, go to your browser menu and click print so that you’ll have it for easy reference.

The Fool + The Magician

New beginning with tools in hand. Inspired action, raw potential becomes focused. Magic in motion. Reversed: Wasted opportunity, trickery, ungrounded ideas.

The Fool + The High Priestess

Leap into the unknown guided by inner wisdom. Intuition over logic. A secret revealed through chance. Reversed: Misguided instincts, hidden dangers.

The Fool + The Empress

Creative burst, new artistic or sensual experience. Playful affection. Pregnancy or new project. Reversed: Reckless indulgence, lack of nurturing.

The Fool + The Emperor

Freedom meets structure. Risk balanced by discipline. New venture backed by authority. Reversed: Rebellion against control, unstable leadership.

The Fool + The Hierophant

Breaking from tradition, questioning beliefs. Innocence challenges dogma. New spiritual path. Reversed: Naïve rejection of wisdom, cultish influence.

The Fool + The Lovers

Spontaneous romance, unexpected choice. Heart leads the way. A joyful union begins. Reversed: Foolish attachment, poor relationship decision.

The Fool + The Chariot

Adventure with determination. Bold move succeeds through focus. A fearless journey. Reversed: Aimless energy, failure to harness potential.

The Fool + Strength

Innocence empowered by inner courage. Risk taken with grace. A gentle victory. Reversed: Naïveté undermines resilience, weakness exposed.

The Fool + The Hermit

Solitary journey for wisdom. Innocent seeker finds guidance within. Unexpected insight. Reversed: Lost wanderer, foolish isolation.

The Fool + Justice

Innocence meets fairness. A fresh start through truth. Karma in motion. Reversed: Irresponsibility, unfair consequences.

The Fool + The Hanged Man

New perspective through surrender. Leap leads to pause and reflection. Enlightenment through inaction. Reversed: Stagnation, foolish sacrifice.

The Fool + Death

Sudden transformation. Clean slate after loss. Ending embraced with wonder. Reversed: Fear of change, delayed rebirth.

The Fool + Temperance

Joyful balance. Risk moderated with grace. Spontaneity meets harmony. Reversed: Excess, poor timing, lack of integration.

The Fool + The Devil

Temptation disguised as freedom. Naïve descent into obsession. Dangerous thrill. Reversed: Breaking chains, reckless escape.

The Fool + The Tower

Sudden upheaval. Innocence struck by chaos. Radical change as initiation. Reversed: Narrow escape, denial of collapse.

The Fool + The Star

Hope reborn. Light at the start of the journey. Guided by faith and inspiration. Reversed: Disillusioned dreamer, lost direction.

The Fool + The Moon

Unseen paths, emotional risk. Wanderer in the realm of dreams. Instinct over reason. Reversed: Confusion, delusion, deceptive start.

The Fool + The Sun

Radiant joy. Childlike wonder brings success. Best outcome from brave beginning. Reversed: Overconfidence, careless optimism.

The Fool + Judgement

Call to purpose. Awakening through experience. Beginning aligned with destiny. Reversed: Missed calling, refusal to grow.

The Fool + The World

Journey’s start meets journey’s end. Whole cycle in motion. New adventure after success. Reversed: Delayed progress, fear of closure.

“The Alchemy of the Mind – Transforming Your Life With the 7 Principles of The Kybalion,” by Daniel Adair.

Veiled Wisdom: How to Live Intuitively in a Linear World — Lessons from the High Priestess

Learn how to live intuitively in a fast-paced, logic-driven world through the symbolism of the High Priestess Tarot card. Discover practical tools, ancient wisdom, and insights for intuitives and spiritual seekers.

In a world obsessed with logic, speed, and quantifiable results, living intuitively can feel like trying to speak a forgotten language. For those who rely on inner knowing, symbolism, and emotional depth to navigate life this can be truly disorienting. You may feel unseen, misunderstood, or even accused of being irrational.

Fortunately, there is an archetype that understands you perfectly: The High Priestess of the Tarot. She doesn’t live by surface appearances or external systems. She lives behind the veil, where symbols, patterns, and quiet truths guide her every move. If you’ve ever felt like your way of knowing doesn’t fit the world you live in, the High Priestess is your ally.

This post explores how her symbolism offers powerful guidance for anyone trying to live more intuitively in a linear, left-brain world.

The Veil: Honor the Unseen

Behind the High Priestess is a veil covered in pomegranates—a symbol of mystery, fertility, and hidden truth. The veil marks the threshold between the seen and the unseen, the conscious and the unconscious.

In daily life, this reminds us to respect what can’t be measured: feelings, dreams, body language, synchronicities. Not everything real can be proven. Living intuitively means acknowledging the unseen world as just as valid as the visible one. In fact, if you’re an intuitive, your inner world may frequently seem more important than your outer world.

The Moon: Trust Emotional Cycles

The crescent moon at the Priestess’s feet is a classic symbol of intuition, emotion, and cycles. In contrast to the linear, upward march of modern life, the moon reminds us that all things move in rhythms—inner and outer.

This is actually one of the oldest principles of occultism and is discussed extensively in The Kybalion. Everything on the Earth Plane – everything – moves in cycles. The tides go in and out. The Moon waxes and wanes. Spring gives way to winter. Even great nations spring up and then fade away.

To live intuitively is to trust your emotional tides. Some days are for action; others for withdrawal, reflection, or stillness. Honoring this inner rhythm—even when it defies external expectations—is a revolutionary act.

The Scroll: Keep Inner Wisdom Sacred

The scroll in the Priestess’s lap is partially hidden and marked “TORA,” suggesting sacred knowledge that isn’t meant for everyone—or even always fully for yourself. This teaches a key lesson of intuitive living: you don’t have to explain yourself.

In a linear world, people often want justification, proof, or evidence. But intuition doesn’t always offer that. Like the scroll, your inner knowing may be incomplete, symbolic, or private. Protect it. Don’t feel pressured to decode everything aloud.

Intuition is frequently about knowing that you know something without knowing how you know it. You don’t have to defend that to anyone who wants to pick it apart with linear logic. Sonia Choquette offers a wonderful tip for dealing with it when someone is attacking your intuition: just smile at them and say, “It works for me.”

The Pillars: Balance Inner and Outer Worlds

The High Priestess sits between two pillars marked B and J (Boaz and Jachin), drawn from the ancient Temple of Solomon. They symbolize polarity—light and dark, masculine and feminine, logic and intuition.

To live intuitively in a linear world, you must balance both forces. Intuition doesn’t reject logic; it expands it. Learn to speak the world’s language when needed, but stay rooted in your own. The magic is in integration.

The Solar Cross: Stay Centered

On the High Priestess’s chest is a solar cross—an ancient symbol of wholeness, representing the four directions, seasons, and elements. Unlike the Christian cross, this symbol is universal. It tells us to stay centered within the circle of life, grounded in your own compass.

Living intuitively means checking inward before reacting outward. It means making decisions from alignment, not anxiety. The solar cross reminds you: you carry your center within you.

It’s also worth noting that the cross is centered over her heart chakra, the energetic mid-point between the lower chakras and the upper. Intuition pulls in insights from the universe but grounds them in daily life.

Practical Ways to Live Intuitively

Create space for silence and solitude: That’s where intuitive messages come through. Remember to be patient with that, too. Intuition speaks in symbols, not type-written messages. When we sit down to meditate we probably won’t get a telegram from the Universe telling us what to do. But . . . a particular book that we need to read may fall off of a shelf or a friend may casually say the perfect word to trigger insights.

Journal or use symbols: Tarot, dreamwork, or creative writing can help you listen inward. The Major Arcana of the Tarot in particular is crammed with archetypal symbols. Every one of those speaks to Deep Mind and starts a dialog with intuition.

Let go of constant justification: Trust what you know, even if you can’t explain it. If other people don’t understand what you plainly see, then fuck them. You’re not the extrovert-whisperer and you don’t need to explain your inner vision to someone who’s blind.

Honor emotional and energetic cycles: Don’t force productivity; honor your timing. Despite the many New Age gadgets and programs that we may encounter now days, there is NO way to force intuition. In fact, quite the opposite: the more relaxed we are, the more likely we are to have a free flow of intuitive insights. The more we force it, the more it flits away.

Balance logic with knowing: Use your left brain to support your right-brain insights—not to silence them. Think of left-brain logic as a sort of an editor that connects the dots for you. The first thing that comes is the intuitive flash: “Hmmm . . . I think this is how it actually is, even though it looks differently.” Then we can use logic to figure out where the insight came from or to explain it to others, but we should never, ever, let logic tell us that our intuition is wrong, simply because we can’t justify it.

It’s Not Impractical – It’s Sacred

The High Priestess doesn’t offer quick answers. She teaches us to dwell in questions, to honor mystery, and to trust the quiet voice within. In a culture addicted to speed and clarity, living intuitively is a radical form of wisdom.

If you feel like you see through the veil or live just outside the edges of ordinary awareness, you’re not lost. You’re listening. And you’re not alone.

Let the High Priestess be your reminder: intuitive living isn’t impractical—it’s sacred.

My new ebook, “The Alchemy of the Mind: Transforming Your Life With the 7 Principles of The Kybalion,” is now available on Amazon.

The Tarot’s Magician Card: How to Transform Dreams Into Reality Through Creativity

Discover how The Magician card in the Tarot reveals your innate creative power. Explore how to awaken your inner artist, overcome self-doubt, and bring your dreams into reality using inspiration, emotion, intellect, and action.

If I told you, “Your ARE an artist,” how would you react? Many of us would remember awkwardly doodling with finger paints in Kindergarten and say, “Um, so sorry. You have me confused with someone else. I don’t have a creative bone in my body.”

But The Magician card in the Tarot is here to tell us that we’re wrong. Not only are we ALL artists, but art is our inherent birthright. Creativity is what human Souls do.

At his core, The Magician is not simply a sorcerer; he is the artist in action — the architect of dreams, the translator of unseen energies into tangible forms. His message is clear and revolutionary: you already have everything you need to create. Creativity is not the privilege of a chosen few; it’s how we’re born. We just need to be willing to trust the flow of inspiration and take the bold step of bringing it into the world.

In this post, we’ll explore how The Magician’s symbolism reveals a timeless pathway for anyone who wants to live more creatively — not just in art, but in life itself. If you’ve ever felt the tug of an idea, the spark of a dream, or the yearning to build something that didn’t exist before, then The Magician lives within you.

The question is: will you answer the call to create?

The Magician as the Artist Archetype

To begin, we need to think about what creativity actually means. Creativity is taking an idea, an intuition, perhaps just a feeling, and turning it into something tangible. That process can be anything from painting on a canvas to planning an enchanted garden to cooking a fabulous meal.

We can see this in the basic stance of the Magician. With one hand extended toward the heavens and the other grounded toward the earth, he embodies the creative process itself: the act of channeling the intangible into something real. This gesture isn’t accidental — it’s a profound symbol of how all true creation happens. First, an idea flickers into being, and then, through focused will and action, it finds its place in the material world.

The Magician uses four symbolic tools in the creative process:

the wand, which is our spirit and inspiration;

the cup, which is our emotion and intuition;

the sword, which is our thought and clarity;

and the pentacle, which is the earth and tangible results.

These are reminders that all aspects of our inner life — passion, feeling, intellect, and grounded action — must work together if we are to bring our visions to life. Creativity isn’t about waiting for a bolt of lightning; it’s about learning to weave the forces already within us into something new.

In this way, The Magician shows us that artistry is not only about talent or skill. It is a deeper alignment — a willingness to step into the role of a bridge between worlds, to trust what flows through us, and to dare to give it form. Whether you are painting a canvas, writing a story, building a business, or designing a life you love, you are engaging in the same timeless act that The Magician represents: the sacred work of creation.

Channel Energy, Don’t Hoard It

One of the most powerful lessons The Magician offers is this: creativity is not something you possess — it’s something that moves through you. His raised wand and grounded stance show a clear channel between the invisible and the visible, the infinite and the immediate. He isn’t trying to grab hold of the creative energy – he’s letting it flow through him.

That’s a vital lesson for all of us who want to live more creative lives. Creative energy is trying to move through us but our little ego minds keep blocking it. “Oh, I can’t really be creative right now. I have to wait for the perfect moment.” Or, “I need to acquire more skills before I can paint (write, cook, garden, start my dream business, fill in the blank.)”. Or, “ What if I look foolish or inept?”

Essentially, what we’re doing is hoarding our creativity. We’re blocking the flow that fuels our art. Energy needs movement. Ideas need action. Inspiration, once caught, must be shaped into something tangible, even if it feels imperfect at first.

The Magician teaches us that the true creative act is not about ownership. Our task is to stay open, receptive, and courageous enough to express what moves through us. The act of creating itself strengthens the channel. The more we trust the flow, the more it trusts us in return.

Creation is not a destination. It’s a living current, and you are already standing in its river.

Using All Our Tools

Some writers describe the table in The Magician card as an altar, but perhaps we should think of it as a work bench, instead. He’s about to create something new and he has all of his tools laid out in front of him: inspiration, emotion, intellect, and physical resources. They all form a vital part of the creative process.

Inspiration is the spark that gets us moving. Perhaps it’s a quirky, weird idea that drops in out of the blue. Perhaps we wake up one morning and think, “You know, I’m sick to death of working in an office. What I’d really like to do is to have my own plant nursery.”

Emotion is the jet fuel that super-charges the creative process. The more we think about spending our days working with living plants instead of grinding away at a word processor under florescent lights, the more excited we get about the idea. We can FEEL ourselves being happy when we making our dreams come true.

Intellect is that wonderful capacity that humans possess to figure out HOW to make their dreams come true. How do we go from loving gardening to actually owning a nursery? Maybe we need to take a few horticulture and business courses at the community college. Maybe we should talk with some friends who own their own businesses and find out how they got started. Intellect is the plan for making it happen.

Physical resources are the material forms that we use to make our dreams manifest in the world. In this case, it might be saving the money to rent a space for our greenhouse or even something as simple as gathering cuttings from our friend’s plants and getting them potted up.

Creation is a weaving act, and the more strands we allow ourselves to use, the richer and more alive our work becomes. Inspiration without structure can remain a dream. Emotion without clarity can feel overwhelming. Ideas without action can dissolve into frustration.

The Magician reminds us: we already have everything we need. We are not missing anything essential. Creativity asks us to trust our whole self — our fiery passions, our deep feelings, our clear thinking, and our ability to manifest in the real world. Each part of us has a place at the table. Each tool is ready for our hand.

Marry Vision With Action

The flowers at the bottom of The Magician card remind us that the process of creativity isn’t just about having ideas. It’s about making those ideas bloom in the real world by taking concrete actions to bring them about.

Dreams are the seeds of creation, but without planting them — without tending to them with real effort — they remain only possibilities. The Magician doesn’t just envision beautiful outcomes; he commits to the messy, imperfect, exhilarating work of building them. As creatives, we must learn to act, even when the outcome is uncertain.

Even when the work feels flawed.

Even when doubt whispers at the edges of the mind.

For the painter, that means actually sitting his ass down in front of a canvas and picking up a brush. For the writer, it means facing a blank page and having the courage to write the first sentence. For the entrepreneur, it means taking the steps to bring her business to life even when other people tell her it can’t be done.

Vision and action are partners in every creative endeavor.

One without the other is incomplete.

When we dare to act on our inspiration — even with small, humble steps — we transform invisible dreams into visible reality. We honor the sacred energy that called us to create in the first place.

Believe in Your Power to Create

At the heart of The Magician’s message is a simple but profound truth: we are the source of our own magic. The tools on his table are ready. The energies above and below are aligned. But none of it would matter without one essential ingredient: his belief in his ability to act.

In the same way, every creative journey begins — and continues — with a choice to trust yourself. Not every work will be perfect. Not every idea will unfold as imagined. But the act of believing in your creative power, even when it wavers, even when the inner critic rises, is itself an act of magic.

The way the Julia Cameron phrases it is that we have to give ourselves permission to be bad artists before we can be good artists. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to be bad artists – it means that we have to get rid of that voice in our heads that’s telling us that we can’t do it or we’re not good enough.

Self-trust is not arrogance. It is not blind certainty. It is the quiet, stubborn willingness to say: I am here, and I have something worth bringing into the world. It’s the decision, day after day, to show up at the page, the canvas, the studio, the meeting table — and offer what only we can offer.

The Magician reminds us that we are not passive vessels waiting for perfection to strike. We are active participants in the dance of creation. Every moment we dare to believe in our power, even a little more than we doubt it, we step more fully into the Magician’s role — the artist, the builder, the dreamer made real.

The world needs your magic.

It always has.

And it always will.

My new ebook, “The Alchemy of the Mind, Transforming Your Life With the 7 Principles of The Kybalion,” is now available on Amazon.

The Fool’s Journey and the Dance of Synchronicity

When The Fool appears in a tarot reading, it may be more than a call to begin—it might be a sign that synchronicity is already at play in your life. In this post, we explore how The Fool’s symbols—from the cliff to the rose—mirror the way meaningful coincidences guide us toward growth, transformation, and spiritual alignment. Learn how to recognize The Fool’s invitation to trust the unknown and follow life’s hidden rhythms.

There are moments in life when something just clicks. A random conversation, a song on the radio, a recurring symbol—these aren’t just coincidences. They feel charged, alive, timely. These are the moments that Carl Jung called synchronicities—meaningful coincidences that seem to guide us, gently but unmistakably, toward the next step in our journey.

And there’s no better symbol for that mysterious push into the unknown than The Fool in the Tarot.

Jung and Synchronicity

Swiss psychologist Carl Jung coined the term synchronicity to describe those uncanny moments when something in the outer world perfectly mirrors something happening inside you—without any logical cause. Like when you think of an old friend you haven’t heard from in years, and just then, the phone rings and it’s her. There’s no rational explanation, but it feels too precise to be chance. Jung believed these moments point to a deeper, hidden order—a mysterious connection between our inner lives and the unfolding world around us.

The Fool as the Signpost of Synchronicity

In the Tarot, The Fool is often misunderstood as naïve or aimless, but in truth, The Fool is the sacred wanderer—the soul on the brink of transformation. When this card appears in a reading, it may be more than a call to take a leap of faith; it may be a signal that synchronicity is actively at work in your life. Like a cosmic green light, The Fool shows up when invisible forces are aligning to open new doors, push you out of old patterns, or introduce the exact people, signs, and nudges you need to move forward. It is the Tarot’s way of saying: “Pay attention. Something meaningful is unfolding, even if you don’t yet understand it.”

The Sacred Zero: Becoming an Empty Vessel

The Fool is the only card in the Major Arcana marked with the number zero—a symbol of pure potential, of being open, unformed, unburdened. In many ways, zero represents the exact state in which synchronicity becomes most alive. When we release the ego’s need to plan, predict, and make sense of everything, we create space for the unexpected to enter. The logical, linear mind wants control; it wants cause and effect. But synchronicity belongs to the language of the soul, not the intellect. It speaks in symbols, dreams, chance encounters—and The Fool, with heart wide open and eyes on the horizon, is its perfect interpreter.

The Dog as the Spirit of Play

One often-overlooked symbol in The Fool card is the small white dog trotting at his side. While some say the dog warns The Fool of the cliff’s edge, it may also represent the playful, instinctive energy that keeps us open to life’s hidden magic. Synchronicity rarely happens when we’re tense, overthinking, or trying to force outcomes. It arises when we’re relaxed, present, and in tune with the moment—much like a happy dog on a walk, open to whatever comes. The dog reminds us that joy, spontaneity, and a sense of wonder are not distractions from the spiritual path—they are the path.

The Cliff: The Edge of the Known

The Fool stands at the edge of a cliff, one foot about to step into the great unknown. It looks dangerous—foolish, even. But from the perspective of synchronicity, the cliff represents the threshold between what we can predict and what we can’t. It’s the edge of logic, the border of the familiar. To experience synchronicity is to step beyond the rational mind and into a world that operates by deeper laws—hidden patterns, Soul timing, and symbolic meaning. When we reach the edge of what we know, we’re invited to trust what we feel. The Fool doesn’t fall; he flies—because synchronicity has a way of catching those who take a leap with an open heart.

The Satchel: What the Soul Already Knows

Slung over The Fool’s shoulder is a small satchel—light, almost weightless, but significant. It contains the inner tools The Fool brings into the unknown: intuition, past experiences, hidden wisdom. In moments of synchronicity, we often feel a sense of recognition—as though some part of us already knows what’s happening, even if we can’t explain it. That’s the satchel at work. It’s the symbolic storage of our soul’s memory, the part of us that is quietly guiding the journey even when our conscious mind is unsure. The synchronicities we encounter may feel random, but they often resonate with something we’ve carried with us all along.

The White Rose: Presence, Purity, and Attunement

In the Rider-Waite depiction of The Fool, he holds a single white rose. In a world obsessed with control and destination, this simple act—pausing to experience beauty fully—is radical. The white rose symbolizes innocence, spiritual purity, and being fully present. And that’s exactly the state in which synchronicity most often occurs. When we are truly attuned to the now—our senses open, our heart soft, our mind quiet—we become receptive to life’s subtle signals. The Fool’s rose is not a distraction; it’s a compass. It reminds us that paying attention to beauty, wonder, and fleeting moments may be how the universe whispers its guidance to us.

Following the Fool’s Footsteps

The Fool is not just the beginning of the tarot’s journey—it’s an invitation to live with openness, curiosity, and trust in life’s mysterious choreography. When The Fool appears in a reading, it may be a signal that synchronicity is stirring, that the universe is aligning unseen threads on your behalf. It asks you to stay present, to pay attention, to sniff the rose, listen to the nudge, follow the sign. It reminds you that the unknown is not empty—it is alive. So next time you draw The Fool, don’t just think of risk or adventure. Think of magic. Think of timing. Think of how the world may be conspiring, right now, to lead you exactly where you need to go.

The Ten of Pentacles, Grandma Moses, and Rocking Getting Older

A closer look at the new paradigm of aging and how we can combat our own internalized ageism.

One thing that’s been apparent watching the demonstrations against the Trump regime is that there are a LOT of gray hairs in those crowds. What in the hell are all of those old people doing out there demonstrating? Aren’t old people supposed to sit at home in their rocking chairs with cats in their laps?

Well, what if everything we’ve been told about aging is wrong?

OLD IS THE NEW YOUNG?

Think of some of the standard images and words that come up when we discuss older people. Words like:

Doddering;

Absent minded;

Frail;

Diminished;

Weak;

Senile

There is a cultural perception of older people as being in a period of decline, fragility, and irrelevance. It isn’t just our societal obsession with youth; it’s an active attack on aging itself. Ironically, of course, it’s something we all do sooner or later (if we’re lucky) so it seems like a peculiar notion on the face of it.

Thankfully, there’s a new paradigm emerging. It’s an entirely different way of aging that embraces it as a time of expansion, reinvention, and wisdom-driven creativity. Before we can do that, though, we need to be mindful of the old paradigm of aging.

THE DISEASE MINDSET

Western cultures tend to treat aging as if it’s a medical problem, rather than a perfectly natural transition. Billions of dollars are being made every year by convincing us that there’s something terribly, terribly wrong with having white hair and a few wrinkles.

There’s really no way to describe it other than as an anti-aging industry. On the one hand, big pharma is busy programming the elderly to believe that they can’t possibly survive without a medicine cabinet full of pills. On the other hand, the cosmetics companies are selling boatloads of product to, “restore your lost youth and vitality.”

The over-all message to anyone past the age of 60 is, “be afraid, be very afraid, because you’re useless, ugly and doomed. You have a terminal disease called, ‘aging.’”

But what if we learn to see aging as a form of enhancement, rather than a decline?

LATE LIFE FLOURISHING

There’s actually a term for that which is, “the Grandma Moses Effect.”

Anna Mary Robertson Moses (AKA Grandma Moses) left home at the age of 12 to go to work as a domestic for a farmer and his wife. For the next 65 years of her life, she had a pretty grueling existence. She and her husband were itinerant farm workers, drifting from job to job and doing back breaking field work. She bore 10 children, five of whom died and she lived on the edge of poverty for most of her adult years.

She took up painting at the age of 78 and only because arthritis was making it painful for her to do needlework. She initially sold her paintings out of the window of a local pharmacy for 2 dollars a piece. By the time that she died at the age of 101, her paintings were being sold for millions of dollars, Hollywood had made a movie about her life, and she’d received a medal of honor at the White House.

All because she picked up a paintbrush when she was obviously too old.

Now, suppose she’d been alive in our time. What messages might she have been receiving at the age of 78? “Let’s face it, dear, your life is over. You’ve got one foot in the grave. I hope that you’ve got medical insurance because it’s all downhill from here. As a matter of fact, you’re at the bottom of the hill and a boulder is about to run over you.”

Grandma Moses was the first time that millions of Americans really got it on a visceral level that being older doesn’t equate to being the walking dead. Being older can be a magical beginning, instead of a tragic end.

REJECTING THE STEREOTYPES

Margaret Nash talks about this in her book, “Rebellious Aging.” One of the key takeaways from that book is that we have to actively reject the stereotypes of what our culture thinks older people should be like.

The Ten of Pentacles shows one of those stereotypes. An old man sits quietly in a corner, wrapped in a shawl, while younger people engage with each other in the light. There are dozens of other stereotypes in our culture, of course. Perhaps we should take up knitting or learn to play shuffleboard. Maybe move into a nice retirement community where we don’t have to cook for ourselves anymore and we can scoot around in golf carts instead of actually walking. Maybe join a book club or take a nice cruise with other old people. The overall emphasis with these activities is that we should find something harmless to do while we’re waiting to die.

But suppose – horror of horrors – that we don’t die?

Suppose that Grandma Moses had bought into the perspective that her life was over at the age of 78 and she just needed to sit down and wait to die? That would have been 23 years of sitting there twiddling her thumbs, staring out the window, and asking people, “Am I dead, yet?” Instead, the next 23 years were the richest and most fulfilling of her life.

THE AGE OF NEW AGING

There IS a new paradigm for aging emerging in our societies.

– Older people are staying creative, starting businesses, exploring spirituality, and reinventing themselves.

– Longevity science and neuroscience show that the brain remains adaptable well into later life. Neuroplasticity is showing that the idea that old dogs can’t learn new tricks is bullshit. We still have lots of tricks up our sleeves.

– And, as older people begin to behave differently, we begin to reject the stereotypes of how we’re supposed to be. The cultural narratives of aging are beginning to evolve. We’re seeing much more positive portrayals of older people which in turn provide more positive role models for all of us.

INTERNALIZED AGEISM

Probably the most important element in rebellious aging is rejecting our own internalized ageism. That means taking the time to really examine how we feel about aging.

* How do we, personally, feel about, “old people?”

* Do we think our, “best years,” are over?

* Do we think, deep down, that young people are somehow, “better,” than old people?

* Are we rejecting our own sexuality because we think it’s inappropriate for older people to like sex?

* Are we constantly telling ourselves things like, “I’m too old for that?”

* Are we obsessing about our high school or college years instead of fully living in our present lives?

* Are we afraid to try new, creative endeavors because we just don’t have the time left to learn to play the piano or paint or sculpt?

* Are we obsessing over our health and expecting that we’re going to get sick, simply because we’re getting older?

If some, or all, of those things ring true for you, don’t feel bad about it. That’s what we’ve been programmed to believe. That doesn’t mean that we have to believe any of it any longer, though.

RECLAIMING OUR POWER

We might think of this as learning to embrace our Inner Grandma Moses. If we’re older, try to imagine that we’re actually going to live to be 101 years old, just like she did. What do we want to do with all of that time? If you’re 70, for instance, do you really want to spend the next 30 years bitching about your aching joints or would you rather roll a joint and listen to some music? If you’re 80, do you want to spend the next 20 years sitting in a rocking chair or would rather dance to some rock and roll?

As other people have said, aging is inevitable but getting old isn’t. Aging is a transition into wisdom, creativity, and new possibilities. Celebrate it.

Beyond Isolation: How Introverts Can Truly Recharge

A look at creating healing solitude.

If introverts had a battle flag, it would probably have The Hermit card printed on it. We absolutely love to withdraw into our own cozy little shells and let the world turn without us participating in it.

So, we’ve finally canceled our plans, turned off our phone, and settled into solitude. But after hours of scrolling or zoning out, we still feel drained. What gives?

THE MYTH OF THE INTROVERT RECHARGE

Introverts often mistake social withdrawal for true recharging but miss the neurological component (acetylcholine release) that actually restores their energy. Just sitting at home is not going to refresh or restore us, although that’s where we need to begin the process.

DOPAMINE VERSUS ACETYLCHOLINE

There are, of course, about a kazillion different chemicals and hormones doing a tango in our busy brains at any given time. For purposes of this discussion, though, let’s focus in on just two of them, the neurotransmitters called dopamine and acetylcholine. And let’s just call them, “happy juices,” because they make different people happy in different ways.

Our brains discharge dopamine when we’re exposed to a lot of social stimuli like loud music, parties, crowded shopping malls and lots of other people. Extroverts actually have many more, “receptors,” for dopamine in their brains than introverts do, so they can soak up an ocean of it and it makes them really happy campers. They feel jazzed, excited, and alive.

Since introverts can’t absorb a lot of dopamine, it basically kicks our asses. For us, it’s like drinking six cups of really strong Espresso – it makes us jittery, nervous, and quickly worn out. It’s introvert poison.

Acetylcholine, on the other hand, gives our brains a mellow, quiet buzz. It’s less like ecstatic dancing at a concert and more like snuggling into a warm bed with nice clean sheets. It’s quiet and peaceful. Introverts love it and it drives extroverts crazy with boredom. It’s our happy juice.

THE ISOLATION TRAP

Now, since too much dopamine makes us feel like crap, it’s perfectly natural to think that just getting away from situations that cause dopamine will make us feel ever so much better. After all, if too much, “peopling,” is wearing us out, then non-peopling should recharge us.

So, we fill the moat around our introvert castles with alligators, pull up the drawbridges, and put up a big sign that says, “GO AWAY!” Free at last!

Unfortunately, by that point, we’re frequently so worn out that we just sit there staring out the window, doom-scrolling on our computers for hours, or binge-watching NetFlix. Those are what therapists call low-nourishment activities because they don’t do anything to feed our emotions or bodies. And, specifically with introverts, they don’t feed us any acetylcholine to make our brains happy.

PLANNING FOR A BRAIN BOOST

A good question for introverts to ask when we’re planning for our recharge time is, “Will this activity leave me feeling nourished or merely distracted?” We know that there are specific, fairly low energy activities that refresh and recreate us by increasing acetylcholine production.

– Reading and Deep Learning: Encourages relaxed but engaged attention.

– Mindfulness Meditation or Breathwork: Activates the parasympathetic nervous system, reducing cortisol and boosting calm focus.

– Creative Flow States: Writing, drawing, or music allow for contemplative immersion.

– Nature Walks or Gentle Movement: Combines physical and sensory stimulation with mental quiet.

MINDFUL INTENTIONS

Another way of putting that is that we need to be intentional with our solitude. We need to design an Acetylcholine-Rich Hermit Phase. We can learn to structure our alone time for maximum benefit.

– Conscious solitude planning: Schedule blocks for purposeful recharging activities instead of just avoiding people.

– Minimize mindless distraction: Replace passive screen time with meaningful, immersive solo activities.

– Create mini rituals: Tea-making, journaling, or slow stretching to ease into relaxation.

And, hell, if we’re not quite ready to jump into being Zen Master Introverts, we can combine some of those activities. Maybe do some Tai Chi while we’re bing-watching Netflix.

REDEFINING OUR SOLITUDE

We’re all different, of course, and introverts tend to be really different. For me, painting, writing, or meditating brings on that acetylcholine recharge. For you, it may be gentle dance motions, working in your garden or reading a good book. For others it might be sitting in the sunshine sipping a cup of tea.

The point is that we all know what makes us feel good. For an introvert it’s like a lover gently kissing the back of your neck or touching your cheek with her finger tips. It’s sweet, it’s calm, it’s gentle, and it makes us feel better almost instantly. Those are the activities that we want to build into our solitude.

Yes, we need to get away from other people on a regular basis, but simply being alone isn’t the answer. Living in intentional, mindful, loving solitude is what makes us whole again.