Posts

Engine Light On: My Relationship with ChatGPT Deepens

Image
  Every driver's nightmare: The engine light goes on. After I got the Toyota hybrid Prius to the Toyota dealer for a diagnosis I knew where to go next. That was online to ChatGPT. What could be the problem and what was the estimate for each kind of fix? ChatGPT has a memory feature. So, it knew that I veer into extreme anxiety. Immediately in its response to the prompt it reassured me that the repair could be simple such as the coolant. That would run about $600 or so. Then it eased me into the big-picture stuff. Some repairs, it warned me, such as the need to purchase a whole new hybrid battery might not be worth it. After all, the car had plenty of miles on it.  It was going to be three days before the diagnosis was scheduled. That gave me time to search for options. I had had good luck with those affordable Smart Cars for Two. I tracked down available ones in the area. In addition, there were businesses which paid for non-operational vehicles so I might even get a few bucks...
Post a Comment
Read more

2026: No Longer Are Most Americans Flying High as a Jay Gatsby, Too Many Shrunk into a Willy Loman

Image
 It was that dream overreach. We were all Jay Gatsby. "They" warned us that if we continued to hunger for more we would wind up just like him: Destroyed, eventually literally. Gatsby, the tragic presence F. Scott Fitzgerald conjured up, came from nothing, achieved great wealth but that wasn't enough. He also chased the old-money ethos, embedded in Daisy.  So, culturists and clergy hammered: Enough is enough. You are enough. That was one of those luxury kinds of moral teachings, from a much better time. Maybe players like Goldman Sachs' Kathy Ruemmler weren't paying attention. The evil genius of Jeffrey Epstein is that he was able to size up that seeming hunger and move right in. Now, it's likely too many overreachers have collapsed into a frightened Willy Loman. I pick up that tragic presence often in tarot readings. In the tarot it's symbolized by the Nine of Wands. No surprise Broadway has a blockbuster in that revival of Arthur Miller's "Death ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Our Times: Principles Are for Suckers?

Image
  We tarot readers don't need to use Survey Monkey to discern what's going on in the culture, as well as in minds and hearts. Our clients come to us with it all. And during the past 18 months what I have had confided to me during a tarot reading is what I am now reading in the June 2026 edition of Esquire Magazine . Editor at Large Dave Holmes lists "25 Things We Have Learned in the 21st Century." Item number one is: "Everyone will sell out, and the ones who don't will be considered suckers." In essence, the message is that no rational human being will cave to principle, at least if they can get away with it. Of course, clients come for a tarot reading because something is eating at them. Not because everything is happy-clappy. What is eating at them is frequently just that: if they can get away with some snippet or maybe a bigger type of wrongdoing.  No, they don't ask me what would be the right thing to do. I am neither a member of the clergy nor a...
Post a Comment
Read more

The "It" Happened in Toledo, Ohio - Taking the Path of Radical Acceptance

Image
We read about it all the time: the "it." That is a mass shooting which seems to have no obvious motivation. And it's all too human to assume that will always be somewhere else. To remain sane and going about your lives you have to assume a sense of safety. Well, this evening about 5:30 PM in what is my new hometown - Toledo, Ohio - there was the "it."  So serious was the "it" that it made national and international news. UK publication Daily Mail reports: "Multiple people have been shot near an annual historic festival [Old West Festival] in [Toledo]  Ohio sparking a huge emergency response and sending people running for their lives."  Details remain sketchy, including the number of victims and the extent of the injuries. The suspect hasn't been caught. This reinforces the tarot fundamental that life is uncertain. That's symbolized by the Wheel of Fortune card. And with the current geopolitical situation, AI, upheaval in the Law of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Calculating Risk in 2026: One That Has Looked Bad Since 2021

Image
  The Fool card is the first in the tarot deck. It represents the importance of taking wise risks. Isn't that what life is all about. And the mystical tarot is about putting together the best life for yourself. Do that right - that is taking smart risks - and the odds are you will get much of what you want - and almost magically. Do that carelessly and you can lose it all, including second chances. In 2026, with so much uncertainty and change it's increasingly difficult to calculate risk. For example, you haven't received a pay raise or promotion. Typical in current times. But connecting the dots on whether to take another job or do a startup is filled with info holes. Moreover, at your age, what is current stomach for risk.  But there is one type of risk which is easier to assess. That's the decision to matriculate for an academic degree beyond the BA/BS. The intel on the peril of that - especially low ROI - goes way back in time to The Wall Street Journal's expose...
Post a Comment
Read more

Solo Aging: Luxury for Many

Image
  Memories of dealing with roommates, for financial reasons. Bunking with a spouse or lover as the relationship yielded diminishing returns. Those offspring hanging on at home. Bearing witness to friends who are stuck co-living. And, oh, that first 18 years of life with family before fleeing to college where even dorm life wasn't as bad. Having to no longer put up with any of that has been a blessing for a growing number of my over-50 clients. Their deep satisfaction is symbolized in the tarot deck by The World Card.  To achieve it usually they have made sacrifices.  Common was pulling up roots in a High Cost of Living (HCOL) area to a Low Cost of Living (LCOL) in order to afford their own habitat. Another was continuing to work to pay the differential single people have to live with. A third was investing the energy into reaching out to build social support systems.  However, such a content state of being isn't universal. In Debbie-Downer manner, The Wall Street Jou...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Wonderful Double Life: Monastic + Connector

Image
  Silence. Meditation/Prayer. Simple daily routines. Those are the defining elements of  monasticism , a lifestyle more and more in America are embracing.   Those new monastics include Nicholas Cage . Recently he began to crow about his personal shift from the fast social lane to a monk-life existence.  But before my exhausted clients go that route I warn them: If you need to earn a good living you need to be very out there, connecting.  When I deliver that lesson, now I can leverage the example of Cage: He already has developed big-time name recognition and built wealth. That gives him the ability to do less connecting and more monk-like stuff. Call the mandatory combination of monasticism and connection The Wonderful Double Life. Classic is the tragedy of an eight-year associate in a large law firm. He continually would tell his wife and close friends, "It's like being a monk. That's what I do 14 hours a day." Well, he should have invested some of th...
Post a Comment
Read more