tarot: i'm over decks

23/02/25

i'm surprisingly-abruptly over "decks". it's been hanging over me for so long and it seemed to just snap recently. to the point of being fed up with my own decks and the faffing around with them i've been doing. which of course is an extension and a result of the general consumerist push in this world in the last ten years or so.

i want tarot to be about what you do with it. the promise of a Good, or new, or niche deck allowing you to do more, do something different in your practice is a distraction. i don't need to do something else, i need to read cards. who cares if i can read 3 new and different ways with these 3 extra decks, if i'm already not really reading enough to justify the decks i do have?

i've already felt a distaste for tarotube as one big advertising platform. i tried over the winter months to find content that's not deck-centric. there's the occasional technique here and there. a bit of history. but overwhelmingly, it's decks. even when it's not a haul, normalizing constant purchases and novelty (ironically the popular youtubers don't even spend money on that, it's all marketing and PR packages), then it's still "top decks to do x", "best pairings" etc. intellectually we all understand that Any one of the listed decks is a good Recommendation, but seeing them in a deluge, in a whole spread, in comparison to the other decks on the list, again reminds us of all the choices available under capitalism, the imposed "necessity" of being a consumer. don't you want to express your truest self by finding that one deck? don't you want to build an aesthetic collection to showcase or create an identity? i'm so tired.

needless to say i haven't been watching those videos. i've watched hardly anything. i moved my tarot activity to the historic tarot forum (mostly reading) and the tarot, tea, and me forum (some sharing). which still didn't give me as many opportunities to read as i'd like, but had the upside of no longer being exposed to that constant messaging of "new! must have!" i'm almost cured of my habit of checking the online stores for what's new. the instances are further and further apart, and each update is as boring and unimpressive as the previous one.

i'm not saying i'm completely cured. i'm pretty sure there is a way for me to still get swept up in the hype of a deck, especially if it hits me right visually. but i haven't seen anything like that in a long time. and i have many more safeguards against hype-buying now. including:

the memory of the strongest regret purchase yet - the only impulse buy of last year. 3 decks i never actually got to know and work with before giving them away after one or two readings.
the absolute pain in the ass of looking at all the decks roughly every month or two and agonizing over "am i ever going to use this deck?", "do i /truly/ feel i can part with it?" and all sorts of other decision making questions, repeated 50 times, or however many decks there are.
knowledge of what themes/aesthetics i actually use (vs. which catch my eye).
the recently acquired knowledge on my preferred reading styles. pictures that don't talk to each other are on very thin ice and need to be something truly exceptional or make up for it in some other way that would justify the extra work. at least that's my current stance, i imagine the truth is that i'm not willing to put that type of work into any deck, new or already owned.

basta!

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