Show, Don't Tell

For one reason or another (Finder's Keepers, the Persona games, Push) I've been thinking about Tarot cards, Arcana and whatnot, and about how systems such as these have been in effect for centuries as a way of understanding the shape of the world. This I have known for some time, but it was only just recently that I really came to appreciate the sentiment.

Having been raised in the Lutheran church I have at no time been given any reason to invest even the smallest shreds of credibility into belief systems such as astrology, palm reading, card reading, whatever you like. This also means that I've been given into a world of predetermination (dance around that all you like, when you get down to it so much of any Christian denomination relies on this subtle acceptance). We believe that we're not really in control of our lives. Well, we might be in control of our immediate lives, our choices and decisions, but we can't look at the world around us and expect to find much.

For some reason, this bothers me. Not in the sense that I feel left out of some cosmic plan... it's more the knowledge that even if I put forth any sort of effort into reading the world around me nothing would turn up.

Spirit animals, reading the winds, I don't know. I could probably go on with a little bit of research if everything in my life hadn't already conspired to invalidate anything that didn't "fit" the pattern.

I mean, granted there is the Bible. But sometimes I feel like it's a case of telling rather than showing. I just want more to exist by way of symbols, or deduction, or meditation. And it doesn't.