Hello. It has been a while. I wrote this essay about reconnecting with my intuition and making decisions based on feeling but also awareness. I’ve been thinking a lot about desire and how it impacts us, either by holding us back or propelling us forward, as this is the central theme of Ordinary Issue 06, which will be out next month. Pre-orders are not officially open (yet!) but you can secure a copy by donating to our GoFundMe. Enjoy!
I have a particular knack for getting stuck. In places, in jobs, in situations. It’s something I became aware of recently, and it comes from a difficulty I have with making big decisions (which stems from a fear of regret). I can never choose one way or the other, which of course is a choice in itself. A choice to remain in the same place, doing the same thing. Watching the figs wrinkle and go black.
In 2022, I was on the precipice of a big change but I didn’t quite know what. My life no longer had that same naive sense of permanence as before. A big group of us had gone to Slovenia right on the cusp of summer. We were in Ljubljana, sitting on the grass by a lake in this sprawling park when my friend Starr pulled The World for me during a tarot reading. I like tarot because I think it can be a great tool for introspection, and can open up some really beautiful conversations.
The World is the last card in what is known in tarot as the Major Arcana, which is made up of the most influential cards in the tarot deck and represents the spiritual journey of the soul. The World represents the ending of a life cycle; a pause before a tectonic change. The woman on the card is beautiful and regal, and seemingly at peace. When Starr asked how the card made me feel I said I felt intimidated.
She told me that the next card in the Major Arcana is The Fool. He represents new beginnings and opportunities, innocence and naivety; the type of carelessness you need to sprint blindfolded into the unknown. I’ve been waiting nearly three years to pull The Fool, ever since that sun-soaked day in Slovenia. But it would be a while until I was ready to accept, and enact, the change that was to come, let alone start fresh.
So I remained stuck. In this period of my life, it often felt like things were happening to me; that I didn’t have control of the reins. The reality was that I was in control but I was being guided, unconsciously, by fear. Fear of change, uncertainty, regret, many things, really. Up until recently I found it anxiety-inducing to make decisions, big or small. I once asked at least 10 people, including my work group chat, whether or not I should buy a pair of shoes I really wanted, even though they were a little bit expensive. I didn’t trust myself to choose. I still don’t, sometimes.
Psychologists say people can lose touch with their intuition if they had a chaotic upbringing or experienced past trauma, which can manifest as a lack of confidence or trust in oneself. Strengthening your intuition, then, is about practice. You have to choose to trust yourself, to jump without asking anybody else if it’s a good idea, and reassess after the fact.
I also think it’s about self-awareness. Scientific studies have found that the strength of our intuition depends on the extent of our experiences. It makes sense, obviously, that the ‘hunch’ of someone who has expertise in a certain area will have a much higher chance of being right about something than someone with no prior knowledge. Intuition isn’t some mad, mystical ‘sixth sense’, it’s the result of understanding. When it came to intuiting what I wanted, and how I was going to live my life, I had to become present to how I felt about what I already had (and did), and why.
In the years and months since pulling The World, getting to know myself has been a priority. I have never spent more time trying to understand myself and my fears. I’ve filled pages and pages of journals, I began meditating, I had some therapy, I analysed my decisions, especially the ones I made without much thought. This might sound exhausting. It can be exhausting. It’s ceaseless. But the fruits it produces are so juicy, so sweet.
In May this year, right on the cusp of summer, I made an enormous decision based predominantly on a gut feeling. After eight years in my beloved Manchester, I decided to move to London. The impulse to move came over me slowly (and then very quickly) over a sunny week visiting my friend Mary, who has lived in London for nearly a decade. I was on the bus on the way up Brixton Hill, holding my suitcase between my legs, when it felt like the gold-green leaves brushing up against the window were beckoning me to stay. On the day I left, the tears in my eyes and the lump in my throat when I said goodbye to Mary nudged me closer. Within a month I’d found a place, and within three months I’d moved. It happened quickly. It had to. If I thought about it for any longer it may not have happened at all. Like I said, I’m pretty good at getting stuck.
There were times in the last three months when I worried I was making the wrong decision: tangled up in a ball of love and gossip in the afters, feeling the music ripple through my body in The White Hotel, lounging in a haze of endorphins next to the jiu jitsu mat. Prickly emotions would come over me quickly, but they vanished just as fast. They weren’t coming from my gut, they were coming from my thoughts. Fear-inducing thoughts about leaving behind a group of people I love dearly, and who love me back. Fear of starting afresh, of not liking it as much. It would have been easy to change my mind, I would have been happy enough. But there was something in me pushing me forward, and I knew I had to leave.
The day before I left, my friends came over to my half-packed flat in Salford. We ate Chinese food and watched the Olympics. I convinced them all to let me read their tarot, and my friend Fran asked if she could do mine.
I got The Fool.
What I’ve been doing
I’ve been working on the forthcoming issue of Ordinary, the Desire Issue, which is going to be beautiful. Keep an eye out on Instagram and our website for pre-orders (or donate to our GoFundMe to secure a copy. Donations over £30 also get a t-shirt.)
Also regarding Ordinary, we hosted our first be-in, a free gathering of like-minded people who want to do nothing together. We are planning more, so if you’d like to come, please get in touch. We also started a monthly newsletter to keep in touch with the community, which you can subscribe to here.
I have been in my print journalism bag this year. Most recently, I profiled Joe Hollier, who co-founded the Light Phone, for Prospect. I also wrote a long-read on the UK’s potential opioid crisis for Prospect, and experimented with giving up my headphones for a month for the Observer.
What I’ve been loving
Clearly, I haven’t posted here for months, so it would be silly to start listing all the things I’ve been enjoying. Mostly, though, it has been books. I very very very much enjoyed Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, which I found super inspiring. I also read Jack Kerouac’s On The Road at the start of this year, and I finally read Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. These three books make for a great unofficial trilogy, in my opinion, beginning with Kerouac and ending with Thompson.
I read my first Dostoyevsky story recently: White Nights. I loved it. Another book I enjoyed was a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami, all based on the theme of desire. It was a Vintage Minis book called, naturally, Desire.
This article on the classist undertone of the ‘discourse’ surrounding the recent far right riots in the UK was vitally nuanced, by Serena Smith.
Most recently, like two days ago recently, I went to Lost Village where I made a dreamcatcher.
Thanks for reading!
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