4 of Cups - dedicated to all the WoW and Skyrim Widow(er)s

[kingtycoon]

You know the one, you're this guy, or you were, or you still dream of being. Or you're this lady - I try for a bit of ambiguity gender-wise to make the whole project like- accessible - likeable to all - but universiality is for unitarians! That's why I always heard anyhow. The reality is that this card - this idea, it's too identifiable to me. It relates pretty persuasively to my version of #6 so that there's some potential for unwanted overlap. Let me hand-wave that away though - the 4 of cups represents an idea of emotion, compassion - love, Feeling - that is ignored. That is - this guy is laying there, fixated on the screen, mixing potions, fighting nazis, jumping barrels and is totally oblivious to what he's got.

Now - in a lot of Tarot illustrations you'll see this as a person who's focused inward and therefore ignoring what they have -which ends up looking a lot like something familiar  But where #6 is on the inward focus and the possibility of creation - the 4 of Cups is about idleness and consumption. The gamer's people love him, he loves them back, but shit, let him get to a save point! Let him just get to the next level!

You know -the I-ching could be the basis for a pretty cool platform game - each level is a jumping puzzle based around the meaning of the cast - changing lines can wreck your time. If you figure out how to make such a thing just mention me in the credits okay?


Really the last thing I can get into about this - is that I noticed while painting the controller that when you hold the thing it's like being supplicant, like praying or putting your hands in shackles. I used to mention to my gamer friends that when they typed at their computers all day - doing whatever, that it was indistinguishable from working - they look the same at work and at play - which I made a lot of hay about. I tried to mountain that molehill. Really - I've got a complex relationship with this subject matter - you know, for a long time being hostile to the idle pleasure, but then, seeing it for what it is - a massive enviornment engineered by hundreds, thousands of people - and past that - a really priceworthy entertainment. You're not advertised to when you play games, you're not made to feel inferior or bad - you're meant to win - to overcome everything- and there's not that much in life that's like that. And alone as we all are playing these things - there's a communion involved in the deep and shared experience - what I'm saying is - don't just hate the video games - don't just discount them and be a Gross Hater Rather, realize that there are amazing experiences that people are having, that are designed to be better than life by thousands of professionals, accept that it is hard to compete with that and know - really know -that when someone lays down the controller to make out with you - they're telling all those professionals, all those voice actors and designers and all the other people who play the game and who they have a communion with - they're telling them: "Hey, hold on, I want to make out with someone, someone really, really special."

And as for the communion - if you doubt it - you should go and see the liturgy:

Comments

[mordicai.livejournal.com]

Hexagram load bars!

NO WAIT

"Mountain Zhou: DO THE DAO."

[sholanda.livejournal.com]

thank you for this.

[kingtycoon.livejournal.com]

I can paint (a little) and write (a little) but not both at once, it turns out. I think I meant to say a lot more about this guy. He's indifferent but not unfeeling, he's turned off and focused on another thing.

This card, to me, it reminds me that your attention is a limited resource- that's why we call it paying attention - and when you're paying it to all the wrong things, or paying it to someplace that will not return your investment (as it were) you're making a mistake. I guess video-games are the attention equivalent to spending all your money on televangelists - something like that.

[sholanda.livejournal.com]

i like the part about him being oblivious to what he's got.