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Comment by zzalpha | Hacker News Reader

This sounds very similar to a basic technique I find useful for making difficult decisions: the coin flip.

If I can't seem to decide between A or B, I flip a coin. If, in doing so, the answer is A, one of three things happens: I find I like the answer, and it turns out it was my preference all along. I find I prefer B after all, and just didn't realize it. Or, I really don't care in which case the coin flip was as good an answer as any I could've come to.

The coin didn't tell me anything. But by forcing a decision it revealed something I didn't consciously understand.

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Piet Hein wrote a "grook" on just this:

  A PSYCHOLOGICAL TIP

  Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,
  and you're hampered by not having any,
  the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,
  is simply by spinning a penny.
  No -- not so that chance shall decide the affair
  while you're passively standing there moping;
  but the moment the penny is up in the air,
  you suddenly know what you're hoping.

Yes, precisely that - I use I-Ching instead.

I plan to write a bit more about this, but I haven't got around it yet. In the meantime, everyone interested in using I-Ching (or any other kind of "oracle device") to re-evaluate your options can read this: https://aeon.co/essays/forget-prophecy-the-i-ching-is-an-unc...

Funny, while I stray from mysticism of any kind after growing up in a Christian church (most of my youth, anyway), I enjoy the I-Ching for that very reason and have for a few years. It's taken me down the road from a life where I was far more miserable than I realized, and to one that more aligns with my hopes.

I have to say it also, just the practice of re-evaluation of my own opinions and feelings, has helped me to be more honest with myself and the people I care about regarding my feelings -- shirking the old "stiff upper lip" until I'm miserable again. It's freeing, even if the practicals don't change on the timeline you want.

The problem with the coin flip is that you have established (narrowly, I think) one of two outcomes. Tarot allows for the possibility of a third. Or fourth. Or fifth.

So, almost exactly how Socrates told people to use oracles.

i learned this the hard way, after doing what the coin said, and having to reverse course a couple of times. on minor stuff only, of course. on anything important i'll sleep on it and the answer will usually come to me the next day or two.

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