The calm didn’t last very long. By Tuesday morning my brain was already in project overdrive again and when I realised that it was over, I fell into a kind of postnatal depression from which I’m slowly recovering.

And since then this blog article has been swirling around my head and it could pretty well be the worst (and longest) I have ever written. Because this morning the adrenaline rush hit me. The Puppeteer struck and all plans for the day went down the drain. I have to write this now. Or I never will. There are moments like this in life. When the Puppeteer calls, you have to obey.

Obey your Master!

Well, and where was the Puppeteer for the last six months when no blog article, no video, and not even a lousy weekly impulse were posted?

He had other things to do. We were busy. He and I and the others. Very much.
…
How can I explain this?

Well … I’m still studying communication design. And in October 2023, that’s roughly sixteen months ago, I started my bachelor’s thesis. No boring theoretical stuff, we can do something practical. And after a loooong phase of topic finding, I got the idea that I would like to design a tarot. You know, those 78 cards that some people use to look into the future. Not me. I can’t look into the future.*

But you can use tarot cards in many other ways. Also as playing cards, by the way. Tarot cards are an amazing tool for exploring yourself. To get in touch with the unconscious. To gain insights and draw connections that the conscious, rational mind can’t find on its own. And I somehow thought that it would be an amazing idea to create a tarot »for more creativity« as a bachelor’s thesis. A tool that people can use by themselves to support them in unfolding their creativity.

Now, before someone says »But I can’t paint and I hate crafting«: Creativity is more than painting, crafting, writing, pottery, singing and dancing and acting and all the other artistic activities. It’s not about making pieces of art. Or, well, it is. But the biggest piece of art is a creative life.

And that has to be made up of many smaller pieces of art – or rather works of art. Maybe a painting, maybe a song. Or maybe a house. A project. An experiment. A family. A business. And so much more. All of that can be an expression of our creativity.

In the thesis I came up with the following definition:

»Creatives are people who use their own inner drive and their own ideas to create something new (physical or immaterial) according to their personal standards, and thrive in what they do.«

Can you relate? I hope so. I am 100 % convinced that every human being is creative. Not only the few »talented«, that’s bullshit.*

Every person has creative potential. Has the ability to make up ideas, to discover connections and to build something that doesn’t exist yet out of their dreams and thoughts. Otherwise we would still reside in caves, butt naked, and wonder why the sun rises and sets. The fact that we understand this whole thing with the Earth and the Sun, and that you are sitting in front of a screen, making sense of letters and words (or hearing my voice), is thanks to the creative achievements of humanity.
Okay. But the thing about creativity is this: It sucks.

Creativity is crap.

In probably the earliest memory of one of countless childhood traumas, I’m sitting on my grandparents’ sofa with colour pencils in my hand in front of a blank sheet of paper. Something wants to get out, wants to be created, to be painted, and I am, in retrospect, utterly overwhelmed. I say things like »I don’t know what to paint«. Put nobody helps me. They don’t know either. They can’t paint. Or they don’t want to. Maybe they don’t take me seriously. And maybe they are overwhelmed themselves.

This feeling, this impression, has stayed with me until today. At some point I have learned that I am not alone with it and that this creative misery is a big thing. That it is much more than not knowing what to paint.

For some it is a seeming lack of ideas.
For some it is an unbearable abundance of ideas.
For some it is the fear of failure. Oder the fear of success.
Fear of change.
Fear of judgment, of course.

It doesn’t matter if we sit in front of a blank sheet of paper, in front of a project or in front of our future: Creativity is a fundamental dilemma. We have to decide again and again if we stay on the trodden path, within our personal and the collective comfort zone; if we stick with the things that are tried and tested – or if we step on a new way, one that will take us to the edges of the comfort zone and beyond.

This second one is still fresh, like virgin snow. We don’t know what to expect. No one can tell us what’s right or wrong. Which one’s the good and which one’s the bad decision. No one knows because no one has ever walked exactly this way before. If we chose it, we’ll follow it at our own risk, move into unsafe and unchartered territory. That’s the way of creativity.*

If we stick to doing stuff like it has always been done, we are pretty much on the safe side. We will still not get out of here alive, but we can get through quite safely and pradictably. If we stick to doing stuff like everyone else is doing it, then we don’t have to worry about what the neighbours might think. And also, there is no reason to criticise us. And very probably we’ll always find someone who shares our problems or has our back. Or at least someone who will bitch and moan with us.

Oh, if you still have the image of me as a three-year-old in front of that blank sheet of paper in your head, it’s time to switch that now. Imagine yourself with your project- or life decisions.

The normal, the safe, the trodden path is the easy option. And I’m not saying it’s bad. Nothing’s wrong with taking the easy way. And it’s not »a way«, not a single life’s choice; we are talking about thousands of decisions. Each time we can chose between the long established solution and the creative, the not-yet-existing solution. But let’s stick with »a way« for now. This easy way is a problem if it makes us unhappy. If we only live our life half. Or, worse, if we live someone else’s life.

When we don’t trust our wishes and dreams and ideas. When we have lost the courage that this trust requires.

Then we are blocked and get in our own way. We »would actually like to, but …«. After the But always comes fear. We mask it as I don’t have the time, I don’t have the money, my job, my CV, the kids, some illness, the partner, step mother, lack of talent, if I was ten years younger and so on and so forth.

Noboby (including me) wants to hear that. But all of that is just masking fear.

If you are ranting already and think that this is complete bollocks, because of course you would definitely do xyz, but you have all these really good reasons not to do it: I believe you. I also have reaaly good reasons. I mean … I really really don’t have time.

Let’s leave it at that for now. If you like you can simply take a closer look at your feelings when you think that you would actually like to do xyz, but [now insert a fabulous reason of your choice]. Just carry this idea with you that it is the fear of something that holds you back. And just check in with yourself how it feels.

So, creativity is not only crap, but it’s also a very basic dilemma. Something inside (we’ll taks about that something at some other point) wants to come out, strives for realisation. Call it creativity, call it self-fulfillment. Call it ideas or daydreams, visions, call it soul or inner voice or divine inspiration or even call it talent. If you really don’t know what I mean, remember your childhood. Back then you still had it.
We can follow this something (=creative, new and risky way beyond comfort zone) or we can leave it (=established, tried and tested way, plastered with signposts, rather safe).

Our fears and resistance pull us back onto the safe way. Of course, we want to avoid what we fear. And that’s good. But what if we chose the safe way and this something inside us just doesn’t shut up? If the dreams don’t fade or tha safe way just leads to unhappiness? If you sense that you are only half alive? And that there has to be more! That you want more!
But …

That’s the basic creative dilemma. Courage and trust versus fear and resistance.

Have you fallen asleep already or are you still there?

Well, sixteen months ago, fear and courage didn’t play a role in my creativity considerations yet, but I had the insane idea of ​​creating this tarot »for more creativity« as my bachelor’s thesis. My professor eventually approved the topic and I started.

I’ve summarized everything that has happened in the last sixteen months and how the thesis has progressed in a 300-page documentation. Yes, the practical thesis has to be documented. Research, concept, sketches, more research, more concepts, utter despair, different research, new concepts, rampant despair, the odd catastrophe on the sidelines, complete collapse, a pinch of self-pity, some medium-sized miracles, the power of madness, Metallica* – and tadaa, I have made a tarot for more creativity. It’s lying here. As a prototype. It’s amazing.

Last week monday I handed in my work. The chances of failing are pretty good. There’s still an oral exam kind of thing later. Then I’ll know.

The plan has always been to publish the tarot. But [here I can insert a fabulous reason of my choice. The effort and cost of publishing, for example] …
The thing is: I’m scared as fuck.

The whole thing could go wrong in two hundred and ninety-four different ways. For example, everyone could think my tarot – The Creative Tarot – is crap. Nobody could want it. The illustrations could just be too horrible. The concept could be rubbish. The whole thing could be too far away from the actual tarot, everyone could find it too freaky. The whole thing could be too close to the actual tarot … no. Not really. But it could be too freaky.

There is a Fool, a Magician and Death. The rest of the trumps are … different. There’s a Mermaid. And a Fairy. And a Hero. And the Puppeteer. And fifteen more trumps that, as far as I know, have never appeared in any other tarot (for the esoterics: trumps are the Major Arcana).

There are no wands, cups, swords and discs or coins, but instead clubs, hearts, spades and diamonds, the French suits. There are pages and knights. The queens and kings had to make room for the masters and goddesses. And yes, you can play skat, rummy, poker and tarot games with the cards. And there are twenty-two more cards with questions and spreads. I have never seen that in any tarot. And there is a poster to help with your interpretation. That, too, seems to be a novelty to me.

And this is my bachelor’s thesis. A small cardboard box with a hundred cards and a folded poster. Sixteen months of work. Countless amounts of blood, sweat and tears. And if I publish it now and everyone thinks it’s shit … then …

I’ve really wanted to kind of avoid it for the last few days. I haven’t had the second prototype printed yet, either. I wanted to let it sink in first and so on. But this morning the Puppeteer hit me in the face and ordered me to publish the thing and take the first step to prove to him that I will obey.

Amen. Here is the solemn public declaration (which I’m deliberately only making after around 2,000 useless words, because very probably no one will read this far): I’m publishing The Creative Tarot. This year. After the oral exam. And I’m writing its book. I’m also publishing my documentation. In parts, at least. Maybe some things have to be censored. But at least the Fool’s Story. More on that in a moment. I still have to pile up more text so that no one will read this. If you’ve read it, comment with something funny. Here or on social media. Something like, »I know what you did last summer!« or »I know your dirty little secret« or something like that.

Well. The Fool’s Story. The Creative Tarot itself is actually just the design implementation of the work. Somehow. In the concept, I tried to get a deeper understanding of the structure of the tarot (yes, tarot has a structure) and compared the sequence of the cards with Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. I’ve read far too often that the Major Arcana show the »hero’s journey« of the fool, blah blah blah – but as far as I know and as far as my research has shown, no one has ever really written this hero’s journey, this adventure story. From there I somehow arrived at Odysseus and his Odyssey, which is kind of the hero’s story of all hero’s stories and … Oh, I won’t give that away yet, that’s another story.

Anyway. I then wrote down the Fool’s Story, the hero’s journey of the Fool who meets the trump cards/Major Arcana one after the other. It exists. It’s wonderful. I think it’s wonderful. So it has to be published. And I really just wrote it down. That’s the bottom line on creativity … I didn’t do anything. I just typed and painted and stuff. The instructions about what I had to write, what happens in the story, what the fairy looks like and all that, they came from somewhere else. Puppeteer probably. Not from the Muse, by the way. It’s about her, too. Of course. A lot. But she has another surprising job. She is the equivalent of Trump XX, Jugdement. And she’s naked. And I suspect that she has something going on with Prometheus, but I don’t know for sure.

Publishing is scary. So why do I want to/have to publish it anyway? No, I don’t like the idea. I’m absolutely certain that every time I post something – blog article, picture, video – there are quite a few people out there rolling their eyes. What kind of crap is she posting now? Does she really think anyone cares about that? So she has to show how great she is again? I wouldn’t go in front of a camera with that hair/figure/nose/whatever.

If you find yourself there: Read Roosevelt and please unsubscribe/unfriend me and my content so that you no longer have to be embarrassed. Maybe you don’t care what I post, then please unsubscribe/unfriend me too. Maybe you like it, then maybe you can leave a like or something, otherwise nobody will know that someone likes this. And maybe … just maybe … you are one of the people who can benefit from my work. Maybe you’ve read something here about creativity that has given you a tiny aha moment.

I really believe that there are things in the Creative Tarot and the Fool’s Story that can be useful to someone out there. If such projects wish to be born into the world, there’s a reason for it. Someone out there needs the Fool and needs to find out how he meets the magician and what the magician tells him. All of this wasn’t (just) meant for me. But I needed it too. I had to write it down and I have to get it out there. And I obey when the Puppeteer calls.

Obey your Master!

That is the most important lesson from sixteen months of work.

The project and I have grown together, become one, even if the umbilical cord has now been cut. I can’t just stop. It’s like a drug. Master! Master! So I’m continuing it here. This is the prologue or epilogue of the documentation. The Diary of a Fool’s Project.