🌚 When the Devil Comes for You at Your Highest Moment
Denzel Washington's advice to Will Smith and the wisdom of the tarot's Devil and Lovers cards
This is Five and Nine, a podcast newsletter at the intersection of magic, work and economic justice. Welcome to our pilot! Due to popular demand, we’re now publishing more regularly, a newsletter every new moon and half moon 🌛 🌚 🌜 and podcasts on full moons 🌝.
Listen now to our most recent podcast episode, a Meditation for the Suit of Cups, and stay tuned on April 18 🌝 for our next one.
When the Devil Comes for You at Your Highest Moment
by Ana Mina (aka An Xiao)
This isn’t a Will Smith take, which I trust you’ve read many of. This is a Denzel Washington take, with a little bit of Smith.
When Smith was on stage to collect his first Oscar for Best Actor, he quoted fellow Best Actor nominee Denzel Washington, who had counseled him that evening: “At your highest moment, be careful. That's when the devil comes for you.”
Just a few minutes earlier, I was sitting in the Dolby Theater for the Academy Awards getting ready to hear the announcement for Best Documentary Feature* when Smith approached the stage. From my vantage point, it wasn’t exactly clear what was going on, but after he sat down, we could hear him cussing out Chris Rock from his seat.
“Well, that happened,” I said to the people next to me, as we all realized it wasn’t a joke. One of the most famous movie stars in the world, who’d earlier glided past me on the red carpet beaming bright like a Caesar entering Rome, was having a moment of profound sadness and violence.
We may never know exactly what went through Smith’s mind when he struck Chris Rock. But the quote from Denzel Washington stood out to me because I recognized the wisdom. Oftentimes, paradoxically, success at work causes tremendous forms of stress.
During readings and in conversations with friends, I’ve seen this cycle occur frequently: as people start reaching a new pinnacle in their career, that’s when the negativity starts. It can go one of at least two directions.
For many, there’s impostor syndrome, the feeling that one doesn’t deserve success. This can lead to feelings of low self worth and even self sabotage. For others, there’s the Dunning-Kruger effect, wherein people overestimate their knowledge or abilities, not realizing what they don’t know. Success can foster a big head, in other words, and success can foster feelings of doubt. It can trigger all kinds of unexpected emotions.
One of the striking dualities of the tarot, at least in a number of traditional decks, is the parallelism between the designs of the Devil card and the Lovers card. In both cards, a force from above shapes the conditions of two figures. In both cards, the two figures represent two forces, a split and then a union, one pair bound in chains and the other paid bound by the heart.
How quickly, in other words, does the thing we love and work so hard for, the thing we so passionately try to accomplish, turn against us in ways we didn’t expect. As Five and Nine Director of Magic Dorothy R. Santos told me, “The Devil isn’t monstrous the way people think. The Devil is seductive. So it’s necessary to discern what is for pure gain versus what is for the good of oneself and people.”
So often, when we drive for success, we don’t consider what happens afterward. The arrival fallacy, as Santos has written about before, can create a sense of “What now?” as the arrival approaches. For many people I talk to, this has been because they simply haven’t thought about what to do after success. For others, success turns out to be significantly more stressful than expected.
If there’s any wisdom tarot can offer when our highest moments unleash the devil, it’s that we must learn to embrace paradoxes. Organizational researcher Ella Miron-Spektor has pointed out that embracing a paradox mindset actually helps with leadership.
Because work, like life, often entails a series of paradoxes. The promotion you get can mean a friend or colleague was left behind. The influx of funding to your startup can create new headaches you didn’t expect (mo’ money mo’ problems, as the adage goes). With the power of a leadership position comes the need to hide one’s full self. The fame you gain makes you and your family the target of jokes made in poor taste.
Embracing contradictions is an inherent part of career. We can both honor our good fortunate and honor the series of lucky incidents that enabled that. We can both recognize our skills and recognize that those skills make up only a small percentage of human knowledge and endeavor. We can be both deeply proud and deeply humble.
Even Smith has written of himself through the lens of paradox. With help from his therapist, he has identified the personas of “Uncle Fluffy” (the mega star most of us think we know and love) and “The General” (his shadow side). Fame and Hollywood demand that we only see Uncle Fluffy. In the insightful words of career thinker Miss Kittin in her song “Professional Distortion”, success and fame come with their own downsides:
I have no right to complain
I have to pretend to pretend
I have to shine I have to sign
I have to never trust you blind
Smith has since apologized, highlighting the Lovers and the Devil in one short reflection:
He gave, perhaps, the most honest answer one can give after a sincere apology (or at any point in our lives, really): “I am a work in progress.”
The philosophy of the tarot doesn’t end with the Lovers or the Devil, even if these experiences can seem all consuming in the moment. They, too, will pass, as they are just part of what it means to be human. The next time we shuffle the deck, a new story of ourselves emerges. The deck in its process of always becoming reminds us that we are all works in progress.
Congratulations to the Ascension Team
*What was Ana doing at the Oscars? She was there to celebrate the Oscar nomination of Ascension for Best Documentary Feature.
Five and Nine would like to extend a warm and hearty congratulations to the core Ascension production team — Jessica Kingdon, Kira Simon-Kennedy, Nathan Truesdell, Maggie Li and Dan Deacon — on their incredible recognition at the 94th Academy Awards. The film was nominated for Best Documentary Feature alongside Summer of Soul (Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Flee, Attica and Writing With Fire.
While Summer of Soul ultimately won, the recognition alone on the world stage is an incredible achievement. Ana was thrilled to be along for the ride as an associate producer.
🎙️ Listen to the Five and Nine Podcast (Next Episode: April 18!)
Subscribe now to get our podcast, which comes out with the Full Moon 🌝 (April 18). As a podcast newsletter, Five and Nine brings the conversation to text and sound. All podcasts are fully transcribed to encourage accessibility.
Listen to Podcast 002: A Meditation for the Suit of Cups:
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Listen to a preview of Podcast 003, with a reflection on intuition and anxiety:
🗓️ Download Our 2022 Lunar Calendar
Ready to reflect by the moon? We’re pleased to share a lunar calendar for 2022, free for use as you plan out your year, designed by Five and Nine Creative Director Xiaowei R. Wang. Print it out, keep it handy on your desktop, or just use it as a reference tool.
Five and Nine is a podcast newsletter at the intersection of magic, work and economic justice. We publish “moonthly” — a newsletter every new moon and half moon 🌛 🌚 🌜 and podcasts on full moons 🌝 — , and we provide an ongoing critical discussion through readings, reflections and debate. In this new world, we’re all rethinking the meaning of work and justice in our lives. Our lives and livelihoods are more essential than ever in identifying ways forward for society that can be grounded in care, compassion and sustainability.
During our pilot period, every issue of Five and Nine is free, and after the pilot, we’ll publish more regularly, with paid and free options. Learn more about us here.
Directors of Magic. Dorothy R. Santos and Xiaowei R. Wang
Creative Director. Xiaowei R. Wang
Producer. Ana Mina (aka An Xiao)
Subscribe now to get our podcast, which comes out with the Full Moon 🌝 (April 18). As a podcast newsletter, Five and Nine brings the conversation to text and sound. All podcasts are fully transcribed to encourage accessibility.