What Do You Use Magic For? Options

Magic: the art of producing a desired effect or result through the use of incantation or various other techniques that presumably assure human control of supernatural agencies or the forces of nature

In it's definition magic has endless possibilities....

does it?

For some strange reason. when i am thinking up "Incantation" or "various other techniques" I have trouble thinking up what to do.

"what exactly is the problem i'm facing now? How do i solve it?" are questions i ask,

but magic doesn't seem to come up as an answer often.

and when it does, i use my trusty tarrot deck and i get BAD RESULTS
BAD BAD BAD RESULTS

so the magic i do always ends up being pure white magic since everything else seems it would go bad.

that's pretty limited if you ask me.

Self-improvement - getting rid of negative energy. Meditating so I can understand myself and my place in Ma'at/Mayet/The Way of Things more fully.

Knowledge. Insight.

Divination. Because you never know what you'll see.

On the odd occasion I'll tangle with someone astrally to get them improve their behavior (yeah, I know this brushes the LHP, but I'm okay with that). I take, accept, claim and proclaim responsibility for my actions. I have no one to blame but myself if something goes south or otherwise backfires.

I am going to copy this down for my own response, if you don't mind.

Ever since I studied Taoism, my magickal works and studies have all been altered to evolve in a certain direction. A blessing is a blessing. A curse is a blessing that hurts, but only in the sense that sore muscles from lifting weights builds strength.

I find that now, I no longer curse others for sake of cursing or to see them suffer, but I feel that I am able to curse others without fear of any sort of implication of reciprocation because the magickal intent is based on helping the other. For instance,

A long while back, many years ago, my older brother was a hothead. We got into an argument, and he threatened physical violence. He went off on a drive, and in his absence, I cast a spell to teach him to "slow down" (being that he was moving too fast, and needed to calm down his temperament!). My father asked what that noise was upstairs after I was done. I said, "Doing a spell to teach him to slow down." Immediately, my father phoned my brother. My brother audibly scoffed. Soon after, he came home, with a speeding ticket. That point after he learned 1) Don't screw with magical people. 2) Slow down and improve your temperament. 3) STOP BREAKING THE LAW!!

From one perspective, the speeding ticket cost money, which hurt the family in a way, because we were going to use it to other means. True. But by that same token, my brother's temper was more of an expense risk to the family. By using a dark-magick/LHP mechanic, I just had to apply magick to a critical point, and the situation corrected itself thereafter.

TL;DR I never curse to curse. I curse for extra encumbrance for strength. I curse to improve the human condition. I curse to bring the best out of us.