Logos, mythos, eros

In our desire to identify with a mirroring image of this & that, the driving force behind it is that this identification somehow makes sense, which is a paradox, because mirrors are not exactly informed by logos.

Mirrors belong to the register that we call mythos. In tarot parlance I always ask: how much sense does it make to identify with a desired identity that’s a mirror of what we think makes sense? Why does it makes sense to be powerful and sovereign à la the Emperor, but it makes no sense to be an idiot à la the Fool?

And yet when the Fool shows up in a reading, people readily identify a form of freedom in what this card projects unto the viewer, not idiocy. So what’s going on? What’s going on is a process of constructing hierarchy, as being powerful is more desirable than being powerless. But this hierarchy is based on unprocessed emotions. If I said, ‘I’m going to teach a class in how to be powerless,’ not a single person would sign up. If I said, ‘I’m going to teach a class in how to be powerful,’ I’d get an army of believers on board, as everyone wants to be it, powerful. But being anything at all, or becoming someone more desirable than yesterday’s persona, has nothing to do with desired identities and mirrors. Being anything at all is the sum of how well you do what you perform.

Note that I didn’t say, ‘how well you perform what you do,’ as I what I want to stress is the idea that doing anything, including performance is part of a set of skills. Seen from this angle, identity itself as a performance is informed by the mysterious eros behind all true decisions.

When you make a decision that’s not the result of seductive dictations: ‘do this and do that and the fog in your head will thank you, as you’ll be spared the pain of having to actually learn anything,’ you discover the eros, the joie-de-vivre that’s seated in you like an Emperor or a king. This King is not the King of folly, however, as a well-recognized Eros knows what it means to live with one’s own passions.

Other people’s passions are never your passions. You can experience having your passions aligned with those of others, but when that happens, this experience is never ordinary. And that’s the difference between wisdom and folly. The self-interested are good at making promises: ‘do this extraordinary thing, and you will be saved,’ but a promise does not equal its realization. ‘Wear these extraordinary Prada shoes, and you’ll feel empowered,’ the world’s salesmen say. The Fools perform in accordance. But how well? What good is acting in the name of dictation, on behalf of a credit card that’s overdrawn, or on the strength of a belief that’s borrowed?

A Fool in rags may be an Emperor for a day, but how ordinary, as there’s no manifestation of genuine Eros in the Fool’s body waiting for the mythos of his own imagination to take him to heaven; only a false logos that makes this false correlation: ‘my rags are my riches.’

When the Fool gets robbed of even the little that he has, he falls prey to other people’s promises of an extraordinary identity. ‘Tell me what to do, what to choose, which one will make me feel special, like a winner?’ the Fool wants to know, and the pretend Emperors in the fast lane say, ‘choose this one.’ When the Hanged fool does it, he thinks that now the promised shining armor is his, but how often is that really the case?

Our selves live in a compromised world that demands shifting positions against the illusion of fixity. We can embody consequential states of action, ‘I do this, so I can become that,’ but we often discover that the desired full stop after a change in identity, as in, ‘I’m this now and that’s it. Basta,’ is actually an ellipsis, the mark for gaps, or what’s worse, traps, or the mark for an implicit postponement of finally settling into a selfhood that’s distinct and robust. This leaves us in a frustrated and fragile state that makes us turn to the praised validation of our weak selves, while giving in to more promises of order, structure, and a solid bank account.

But the questions what we want to answer are these: who do we listen to when the story of the fragile loses its aura? Who do we listen to when the self-assured self is looked upon with suspicion?

These are just some of the questions that I’ll be looking at in the upcoming 3-week course, Tarot for Yourself. Hop on board, and learn more about the frustrated self in increasingly frustrated environments.

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On Eros

Tarot for Romeo and Juliet is basically a book on having the right relationship with yourself, before you lend your body, your eyes, ears, and your kisses to anyone else.

On Arcades Tarot

Get it here.