kingtycoon | (no subject) (Reply)

Do you know the ontological argument for the existence of Superman? It goes like this - you are imperfect (come on, admit it) and you have the quality of existence. Superman is perfect. Since you are imperfect and have the quality of existence, Superman must exist because he is better than you.

Of course Superman does exist in fiction and that's the corollary or rebuttal of the argument - that non-existence is the sine-qua-non of perfection. Nothing is perfect that physically exists. Or, if you like, carried forward - what is real is not what is best.

There you are - the best argument for the life of the mind, the inward looking eye and the contemplative dream. What's best isn't real and what's real isn't best.

This is what the 4 of Pens is all about - retreating from the mundane and becoming absorbed in the beatific and sublime.

Captured - as it were, by the perfection of a fiction, of an idea. Compelling, it's compelling just to think of it - the Deity as a concept is something that has absorbed people since they've been people. To me this relates very closely to the 4 of Cups - a figure immersed in a dream, on the one hand you have a spiritual fulfillment that arises in spite of the world's efforts, in the other you have a person withdrawing from and forgetting the world - which goes on, quite indifferent.

The distinction - between those withdrawing is that the one is ignoring what is good in the world, the other is turning away from what is bad. Simple enough, maybe a fine distinction. But consider - there is perfection in thought that doesn't exist in the material realm. Platonism for you. The world is just shadows of a better idea. It's sensible to be captured by the idea. In the 4 of Cups he's captured by the world, ignoring the spiritual, or fulfilled already, turns to the material.

The 4 of Pens connotes not only an abandonment of earthly cares - but a rejection of the validity of them,

A trance of the nobler world - this situation likewise implies a final sleep - the translation of the mortal to the spiritual through that eventual magician called death. Sure, you're going to get there from here. And when the heart stops and the brain dies the mind goes on. Maybe. In fiction it might and fiction, unlike the mundane world, has the quality of being capable of perfection.