Madame SosostrisFamous Clairvoyant
Fortune Teller ...
Ever been to a fortune teller?
I used to go when those little carnivals rolled into town. You know, the ones with all the rides and a row of sideshows featuring geeks, freaks, and sometimes half-nude women. Usually somewhere along that row of tents, there would be one set up with a fortune teller, who used a crystal ball or tarot cards or whatever in order to predict your future.
Now, maybe this little operation was a bit shady, since it always seemed the lady inside was more like a bank teller than a fortune teller. After all, the latest rendition of Madame Sosostris seemed much more eager to take your money than to predict anything worthwhile with regards to your future.
There would be generalities, of course. "You'll fall in love with a special person" or "Your life will take a turn for the worse, but you'll bounce right back into happiness" come to mind. Such predictions aren't subject to much argument.
Mostly, you got to hear what you wanted to hear. Fortune tellers have a knack for conducting great interviews, kind of like some wag in a company's human resources office, the guy who gets to decide whether or not you're going to get a job at Acme Marketing or whatever. Everything you say is a tip-off to something else about you.
Fortune tellers know how to get you to say enough about yourself to figure out something that reveals your hopes or your worst fears. With that kind of knowledge, they can just sort of extrapolate something about what you may hope of fear is going to happen to you, and of course you believe what they say, because, quite truthfully, you said it first.
I once knew a wonderful lady who would read tea leaves in a little tea house here in the heart of Toronto. She would move from table to table, and after your last sip of tea, she would offer to read your tea leaves. So, you turned the cup upside down on the table, spun it once or twice to the left or the right (I can't be sure which), and then she would look into the cup, where the tea leaves were stuck in strange patterns, and tell you something about your future.
For the life of me, I can't remember if, at first, any of what she said ever came true. Soon enough, however, I did make a point of taking dates there, and she caught on to what I wanted my date to hear pretty quickly. "You're about to have a very enjoyable evening with this wonderful man," she'd say in a serious, persuasive tone of voice, and more often than not, her sonorous prediction would actually come true. It was well worth the $25 that I slipped into her twitching palm that was groping around under the table.
All in all, I guess that it would be nice to be able to know the future. It would be much easier than the guesswork most of us practise.
Of course, then there would be no surprises, and the lotteries would go out of business. Everything would be predictable, and before long, I'll bet we'd all be wishing we couldn't see beyond the next minute or two.
Maybe, fortune tellers exist because we never seem to stop searching for happiness or for "something better." Even people who say that they "happy" don't seem to mind looking to see if the grass is greener on the other side of the proverbial fence.
Sometimes, it always seems we want what we can't have and have what we don't particularly want.
Way back in the day, there was a very popular fortune teller in town. Madame Ruby was her name. One day I tagged along with two of my friends to get a reading from Madame Ruby. She looked at my palm, looked at me, and said she couldn't "read me." What? Why not? She returned my money, and that was my first and last experience with a fortune teller.
ReplyDeleteWell, I suspect you gentile southern ladies don't have lines on your perfect palms ...
DeleteThere lies the conflict--how to condition yourself to recognize and enforce a want from a need--never an easy task.
ReplyDeleteSome folks confuse the two all the time. Want something badly enough and it becomes a need, I guess.
DeleteI've never consulted a fortune teller in my life basically because I have always felt it was a sham and I don't have money to throw away. But I guess a part of me would not want to know what is ahead anyway. I try to live each day as it comes and enjoy it for what it is rather than worry about the future. At least now that I am older I try to do this.
ReplyDeleteIn many ways I can relate to that line about wanting what we can't have and having what we don't particularly want. But even that is changing for me these days. I am pretty content with things as they are right now.
Nice blog Kennedy
Living each day ... day by day ... is the best approach. I never worry about the future any more. I guess that, after a certain age, the future gets a bit smaller, and I never sweat the small stuff.
Delete:) oh those damn fortune tellers...
ReplyDeleteHaha ... yes, nosey parkers ...
Deletei am kinda scared of showing...i dont want to know anything bad...then i'll live in dread...besides out here they say, you damage your luck if u show ur palm to people....:))
ReplyDeleteMy palms are all scars ... from living crazy ...
DeleteYou make me laugh so much :). I think those dates must have been great. I'd never heard of reading tea leaves. Fascinating. Your so correct in your last statement. :)
ReplyDelete"I'd never heard of reading tea leaves. "
DeleteWell, if you drink real tea, not using tea bags, you'll get some tea leaves in your cup. When you finished your tea, turn it over and turn it around a couple of time, then look at the leaves in the bottom of your cup and try to imagine what objects you see (like you do when looking at big summer clouds)... what you see is supposed to have something significant to do with your future ... great fun actually ...
Reading coffee cups can be interesting too but the coffee when made must be finely ground and brewed on a stove top without filtering the residue but leaving it to rest at the bottom. After black coffee is poured and sipped each person will have a residue in their cup. It is swirled around and then the cup is tipped upsidedown on the saucer. The fine coffee leaves pictures all around the inside of your cup. Sometimes strikingly clear. Always look for the postive and you will see it.
ReplyDelete