The four cards: Love (Hearts), Learning (Air), Money (Diamonds/Pentacles), Cups (Love)
Today we went to ikea. We bought plenty of food back home. One of the things were these glow sticks, where you could bracelets, ears, swords, wands, earrings and so on. We got two swords each; one topped with a heart and one topped with a star.
k asked me to tell a story about these two swords since I have a "gift with words". I made up stuff on the fly but with the questions she asked, we created a full story. I am going to type what I remember of it -- as the final product.
---
This is a story of a sword maker. He wanted to create the perfect sword. He gave a perfect sword to his father who is a sword collector but not a sword user or a sword maker himself. The father was going to give the sword to a kind farm boy who was working for him. An ill intentioned man showed up asking to buy this sword. The father refused, and instead gave it to the farm boy. The ill intentioned man took the sword, killing both farm boy and father.
...A few years passed. The sword maker met and fell in love with a woman. They had twins, a boy and a girl. At this time the ill intentioned man had grown very powerful. He raised an army and was trying to conquer the land. In the midst of all this war, the wife dies. The sword maker who no longer made swords was coming back from work and he discovered his wife dead and his two children crying.
The sword maker then thought about his children, how they suffered and how all children suffer in a chaotic and uncertain world.
He then prayed to the original god and goddess of the world as to what to give his two children swords.
The original god and goddess made the world. Once there was only ocean. They dipped their swords into the ocean and stirred up mud, which became the world. The sword maker thought of the god and goddesses' swords, expressing their perfect will.
At this point he released that all these years, he made swords being in search of a perfect sword, for his collector dad. A perfect sword is perfectly balanced with its user really was a conduit. It didn't just perfect one's martial arts, or one's form as an extension of their body. The sword maker then realized it wasn't form he was creating after all; by tailoring it perfectly to a user he also created the perfect weapon. It could also kill people.
Thus, by being a perfect extension of the body, the perfect tool, so it also expressed the will of the user.
He then decided to make swords for his children.
So how should he do it? What should he put into the swords to make them special? (k demands to know so she could see the story)
He thought about the characters of his children, expressed in their purest essence. The original god and goddess who made the world then showed him, when he was deep in meditation that his two children possessed the two angles of the best of humanity.
And it was these two angles that could save the world: Love and Learning.
You love the world and you love others when you are genuinely curious about them, and learn about them and learn about the world.
With what you learn, you can love. When you love you are open to learn. You can't love something without learning about it. And you can't learn about something without loving it.
The boy was kind love about the animals, the plants and the people. The girl was an earnest curiousity about everything.
These two aspects were the best in humanity, because as you love your neighbors and your family, you learn about each other and how to best protect and care about one another.
(As Heidegger pointed out, being is care in the world.)
As the sword marker pondered how to make swords that best expressed the inner essence of his two children, so he realized that the god and goddess were also explaining the technology: a sword also expresses the pure essence of the sword maker.
This means that the sword, expressing the pure will of the sword maker could mold the sword user. He could make the swords to express the inner will of the best of his two children.
As the sword user can mold the world into his will, as an extension of himself, the sword will act as an interface between the world and him. So the sword user can be molded by the sword, since it filters the world for him. The sword is more than a conduit, it is a gate: from one to the world, as a way of knowing the world so it is also a way of knowing yourself.
The swords the sword maker made are these two swords ("I held up the two glow stick swords").
Through the grief of his wife, he worked his weakened and dying breath into making swords for his children.
He gave the swords to his brother, who was a semi-wealthy merchant, to care for his children and keep the swords in safe keeping. With his dying breath, he told his children:
"All I was ever good for was sword making. I tried to make a living for your mother and you but I failed; we are in poverty. I could also not protect your mother, nor save your life. With my gift I made the very sword that killed my father. What I make are instruments that bad intentioned people slaughtered each other for money -- for things.
The sword is an expression of the will of the user. If the will of the user was strongly evil, so that will could be amplified.
(At this point k pointed out that the perfect sword the sword maker made also perfectly expressed the will of the sword maker, murdering his father, the collector of swords: As the father no longer could collect swords, and the sword maker would also kill himself.)
(so yes:) With this amplification, the perfect sword I had made enabled the ill intentioned man to kill your grandfather, a pure hearted peasant, your mother, my wife, and indirectly your father, me.
But a sword is only a tool. If the will of the user was strongly good, then that will would be amplified. With these two swords you can make the world better if your hearts are pure. If a bad man could kill with it, so a good man could protect."
Then the sword maker died and the uncle raised the two grieving children as his own, putting the swords away, thinking, why do children need swords?
...2 a decade or so passed. The chaotic world gave way to mass oppression where evil ruled and the strong oppressed the weak in a corrupt government. The ill intentioned man ruled this world as a tyrant.
The two children have grown.
The boy looked up to the hooligans that extorted the village, posing as police. He wanted to be one of them. The girl, girls aren't supposed to learn, quietly observed the world extort people their uncle, who was bullied around. She couldn't take that, recalled her father's sword, took that and ran away from home in fear, that she might have to be married to a hooligan low life.
She found a temple full of monks living in the hills. She observed that they had super human abilities, like fighting and meditating and even flying, and other amazing abilities. She demanded that they teach her.
They refused. She was an outsider and a girl. She would not be denied, so she broke into their temple and tried to learn their teachings from their books. She did learn a little about history, but they caught her stealing food.
They threatened her. She was afraid but out of desperation she raged: "Buddha's teachings weren't for you to train yourselves to become perfect and immortal! You are supposed to become enlightened so you could help other people not yourselves. You are corrupt!"
They were merely going to throw her in jail or force her to be a servant but now the head monk retorted: "So we want to help ourselves, you are no better than we because you want to learn how to fight and hurt other people. Who are you to judge us?" Then they threw her out so she could wander the world and suffer.
With nowhere to go, she went home. She thought about what the monks said and was ashamed. She then saw through her fear that her brother had joined the very people who tormented the entire town. He was a bully like them.
She tried to get him to stop. He looked at her, for the first time in years and said "No, fuck you."
She would not be deterred. Even if she was corrupt wanting to hurt others, she could at least try to get her brother to stop. He completely ignored her but his compatriots did not. They saw how she seriously interfered with their plans, so they decided to rape, torture and kill her.
The brother discovered this was going to happen to his sister so he had to stop them. He recalled his father had given him a sword so long ago, so he grabbed his swords to try to save his sister. In their novice fighting, they called upon his father's love to help save them.
There are too many of them to fight and kill, and they were his friends, so he thought. Instead he saw them as his victims saw him; and so he and his sister fought and barely got away, as their uncle tried to protect them in his ineffectual way.
The monks found the brother and sister, wounded and barely alive, passed out.
They took the siblings in and nursed them back to health. When they were conscious again, the monks explained that her questioning the head monk caused the monks to question themselves. They then banished the corrupt monks and have re-devoted themselves to trying to find the truth behind the world's suffering. They decided to teach the siblings all their teachings so that the siblings could go out and fight and survive.
This is a cruel world, they said. We do not know what the truth us, we only know that we all should do what we can against suffering. If good people could fight back, maybe then we can have some balance in the world.
They trained the brother and sister in all the spiritual teachings they could, and then let the siblings leave after many years of study and training. They (and maybe some monk friends) then went back to the town to try and save their uncle. He was old, and begged them away, living now in poverty. They fought the police and after much struggle could have killed them, but instead spared them.
In sparing them and calling upon their past brotherhood, the brother got the gang to swear loyalty to him. They realized the pain they had caused others, and how they would ultimately harm themselves by harming the world... that they were part of the world, and thus responsible for the world as they are responsible to themselves and each other.
With this, the brother and sister start to spread their message and attract a following. They win people over, and resow harmony. Eventually they clash with the ill intentioned man.
At this point I gave several possible scenarios:
1. The perfect sword is shattered
2. The perfect sword is knocked out of the ill intentioned man's hands
3. The ill intentioned man is killed
4. The ill intentioned man is banished
5. The ill intentioned man is jailed
k demanded I choose one ending. I then added, that the struggle doesn't just happen on the battlefield. The ill intentioned man also has a deceased wife, who was killed by a rival, so he raised his two children, a boy and a girl who was also corrupt.
The two siblings pair meet and then fall in love as they win over their doubles.
So they learn about each other as simultaneously learn about themselves. They care about each other as they also care about themselves.
They then confront their father-in-law/father.
Most of the endings happen.
They capture the perfect sword and incapacitate it, by limiting who can use it. They banish the ill intentioned man to an island where he escaped to. In essence, he is jailed and can be visited by those whose lives he had ruined.
I suppose the siblings could live happily ever after. But I think a better ending is that by saving the world, they became weakened and then both die, leaving their brother-sister counter parts to rule their father's empire under the guise of love and learning.
This ending has the benefit of leaving the nation is whole, with minimal change. The world effectively has the same government, only the people in charge have changed their intention.
The nation keeps the same working government, with minimal disruption. The legitimate heirs are restored as benevolent leaders. And those who had the power to change the world did so without becoming dictators.
So the sword maker's intentions are expressed and he undoes his mistake of not realizing his true intentions with trying to make the perfect sword. He sacrificed his children to save and improve the world.
(He made them living Gods.)
k thought it was a good story. She urged me to write it down somewhere. I was going to record myself talking but decided this was a better venue.
k asked me to tell a story about these two swords since I have a "gift with words". I made up stuff on the fly but with the questions she asked, we created a full story. I am going to type what I remember of it -- as the final product.
---
This is a story of a sword maker. He wanted to create the perfect sword. He gave a perfect sword to his father who is a sword collector but not a sword user or a sword maker himself. The father was going to give the sword to a kind farm boy who was working for him. An ill intentioned man showed up asking to buy this sword. The father refused, and instead gave it to the farm boy. The ill intentioned man took the sword, killing both farm boy and father.
...A few years passed. The sword maker met and fell in love with a woman. They had twins, a boy and a girl. At this time the ill intentioned man had grown very powerful. He raised an army and was trying to conquer the land. In the midst of all this war, the wife dies. The sword maker who no longer made swords was coming back from work and he discovered his wife dead and his two children crying.
The sword maker then thought about his children, how they suffered and how all children suffer in a chaotic and uncertain world.
He then prayed to the original god and goddess of the world as to what to give his two children swords.
The original god and goddess made the world. Once there was only ocean. They dipped their swords into the ocean and stirred up mud, which became the world. The sword maker thought of the god and goddesses' swords, expressing their perfect will.
At this point he released that all these years, he made swords being in search of a perfect sword, for his collector dad. A perfect sword is perfectly balanced with its user really was a conduit. It didn't just perfect one's martial arts, or one's form as an extension of their body. The sword maker then realized it wasn't form he was creating after all; by tailoring it perfectly to a user he also created the perfect weapon. It could also kill people.
Thus, by being a perfect extension of the body, the perfect tool, so it also expressed the will of the user.
He then decided to make swords for his children.
So how should he do it? What should he put into the swords to make them special? (k demands to know so she could see the story)
He thought about the characters of his children, expressed in their purest essence. The original god and goddess who made the world then showed him, when he was deep in meditation that his two children possessed the two angles of the best of humanity.
And it was these two angles that could save the world: Love and Learning.
You love the world and you love others when you are genuinely curious about them, and learn about them and learn about the world.
With what you learn, you can love. When you love you are open to learn. You can't love something without learning about it. And you can't learn about something without loving it.
The boy was kind love about the animals, the plants and the people. The girl was an earnest curiousity about everything.
These two aspects were the best in humanity, because as you love your neighbors and your family, you learn about each other and how to best protect and care about one another.
(As Heidegger pointed out, being is care in the world.)
As the sword marker pondered how to make swords that best expressed the inner essence of his two children, so he realized that the god and goddess were also explaining the technology: a sword also expresses the pure essence of the sword maker.
This means that the sword, expressing the pure will of the sword maker could mold the sword user. He could make the swords to express the inner will of the best of his two children.
As the sword user can mold the world into his will, as an extension of himself, the sword will act as an interface between the world and him. So the sword user can be molded by the sword, since it filters the world for him. The sword is more than a conduit, it is a gate: from one to the world, as a way of knowing the world so it is also a way of knowing yourself.
The swords the sword maker made are these two swords ("I held up the two glow stick swords").
Through the grief of his wife, he worked his weakened and dying breath into making swords for his children.
He gave the swords to his brother, who was a semi-wealthy merchant, to care for his children and keep the swords in safe keeping. With his dying breath, he told his children:
"All I was ever good for was sword making. I tried to make a living for your mother and you but I failed; we are in poverty. I could also not protect your mother, nor save your life. With my gift I made the very sword that killed my father. What I make are instruments that bad intentioned people slaughtered each other for money -- for things.
The sword is an expression of the will of the user. If the will of the user was strongly evil, so that will could be amplified.
(At this point k pointed out that the perfect sword the sword maker made also perfectly expressed the will of the sword maker, murdering his father, the collector of swords: As the father no longer could collect swords, and the sword maker would also kill himself.)
(so yes:) With this amplification, the perfect sword I had made enabled the ill intentioned man to kill your grandfather, a pure hearted peasant, your mother, my wife, and indirectly your father, me.
But a sword is only a tool. If the will of the user was strongly good, then that will would be amplified. With these two swords you can make the world better if your hearts are pure. If a bad man could kill with it, so a good man could protect."
Then the sword maker died and the uncle raised the two grieving children as his own, putting the swords away, thinking, why do children need swords?
...2 a decade or so passed. The chaotic world gave way to mass oppression where evil ruled and the strong oppressed the weak in a corrupt government. The ill intentioned man ruled this world as a tyrant.
The two children have grown.
The boy looked up to the hooligans that extorted the village, posing as police. He wanted to be one of them. The girl, girls aren't supposed to learn, quietly observed the world extort people their uncle, who was bullied around. She couldn't take that, recalled her father's sword, took that and ran away from home in fear, that she might have to be married to a hooligan low life.
She found a temple full of monks living in the hills. She observed that they had super human abilities, like fighting and meditating and even flying, and other amazing abilities. She demanded that they teach her.
They refused. She was an outsider and a girl. She would not be denied, so she broke into their temple and tried to learn their teachings from their books. She did learn a little about history, but they caught her stealing food.
They threatened her. She was afraid but out of desperation she raged: "Buddha's teachings weren't for you to train yourselves to become perfect and immortal! You are supposed to become enlightened so you could help other people not yourselves. You are corrupt!"
They were merely going to throw her in jail or force her to be a servant but now the head monk retorted: "So we want to help ourselves, you are no better than we because you want to learn how to fight and hurt other people. Who are you to judge us?" Then they threw her out so she could wander the world and suffer.
With nowhere to go, she went home. She thought about what the monks said and was ashamed. She then saw through her fear that her brother had joined the very people who tormented the entire town. He was a bully like them.
She tried to get him to stop. He looked at her, for the first time in years and said "No, fuck you."
She would not be deterred. Even if she was corrupt wanting to hurt others, she could at least try to get her brother to stop. He completely ignored her but his compatriots did not. They saw how she seriously interfered with their plans, so they decided to rape, torture and kill her.
The brother discovered this was going to happen to his sister so he had to stop them. He recalled his father had given him a sword so long ago, so he grabbed his swords to try to save his sister. In their novice fighting, they called upon his father's love to help save them.
There are too many of them to fight and kill, and they were his friends, so he thought. Instead he saw them as his victims saw him; and so he and his sister fought and barely got away, as their uncle tried to protect them in his ineffectual way.
The monks found the brother and sister, wounded and barely alive, passed out.
They took the siblings in and nursed them back to health. When they were conscious again, the monks explained that her questioning the head monk caused the monks to question themselves. They then banished the corrupt monks and have re-devoted themselves to trying to find the truth behind the world's suffering. They decided to teach the siblings all their teachings so that the siblings could go out and fight and survive.
This is a cruel world, they said. We do not know what the truth us, we only know that we all should do what we can against suffering. If good people could fight back, maybe then we can have some balance in the world.
They trained the brother and sister in all the spiritual teachings they could, and then let the siblings leave after many years of study and training. They (and maybe some monk friends) then went back to the town to try and save their uncle. He was old, and begged them away, living now in poverty. They fought the police and after much struggle could have killed them, but instead spared them.
In sparing them and calling upon their past brotherhood, the brother got the gang to swear loyalty to him. They realized the pain they had caused others, and how they would ultimately harm themselves by harming the world... that they were part of the world, and thus responsible for the world as they are responsible to themselves and each other.
With this, the brother and sister start to spread their message and attract a following. They win people over, and resow harmony. Eventually they clash with the ill intentioned man.
At this point I gave several possible scenarios:
1. The perfect sword is shattered
2. The perfect sword is knocked out of the ill intentioned man's hands
3. The ill intentioned man is killed
4. The ill intentioned man is banished
5. The ill intentioned man is jailed
k demanded I choose one ending. I then added, that the struggle doesn't just happen on the battlefield. The ill intentioned man also has a deceased wife, who was killed by a rival, so he raised his two children, a boy and a girl who was also corrupt.
The two siblings pair meet and then fall in love as they win over their doubles.
So they learn about each other as simultaneously learn about themselves. They care about each other as they also care about themselves.
They then confront their father-in-law/father.
Most of the endings happen.
They capture the perfect sword and incapacitate it, by limiting who can use it. They banish the ill intentioned man to an island where he escaped to. In essence, he is jailed and can be visited by those whose lives he had ruined.
I suppose the siblings could live happily ever after. But I think a better ending is that by saving the world, they became weakened and then both die, leaving their brother-sister counter parts to rule their father's empire under the guise of love and learning.
This ending has the benefit of leaving the nation is whole, with minimal change. The world effectively has the same government, only the people in charge have changed their intention.
The nation keeps the same working government, with minimal disruption. The legitimate heirs are restored as benevolent leaders. And those who had the power to change the world did so without becoming dictators.
So the sword maker's intentions are expressed and he undoes his mistake of not realizing his true intentions with trying to make the perfect sword. He sacrificed his children to save and improve the world.
(He made them living Gods.)
k thought it was a good story. She urged me to write it down somewhere. I was going to record myself talking but decided this was a better venue.