More questions for readings

[dodalisque]

If matter is the opposite of spirit, is crime the opposite of poetry?

Is everything that violates our idealism a crime?

Is idealism a crime?

Is meaning a quality of matter?

What is the purpose of embarrassment?

Why do we need a subconscious if we are not meant to repress things?

Is generosity dangerous to the giver?

It is not a sin to be tired, but is it a mistake to admit it?

What is the difference between self-confidence and self-assurance?

Can only the humble value humility?

Is the prospect of an alternative absolutely necessary to human will and human action?

If the atom is only a provisional idea, how can we say it is situated in space?

If the body has a mind of its own, does it follow that the mind has a body of its own, even if it is like nothing we can see around us or have ever seen?

Disgrace contaminates, even though it makes everyone else feel a little safer. Discuss.

Is mystery a luxury beyond the means of most people?

Our 5 sense do their best for us, but do we do our best for them?

Does the element of wonder belong to a phenomenon or always in the person observing?

Is being cruel sometimes the only justice we can afford?

What is the difference between scientific thought and ordinary thought?

Does asking for the return of something you have lent takes all the goodness out of it?

Does time pass more slowly in small places?

Dickens was right to kill little Nell at the age of 8, because symbolically beauty of that sort is impossible in human beings beyond the age of 9 or 10. Discuss.

Is duty what no-one else will do at the moment?

Is someone who is "too sure of himself" merely a good judge of the possible?

Is a river only thought to be romantic by those who do not know it well?

In what way can the truth be made acceptable?

The body must either repair itself or stop functioning, but that is not true of the emotions. Discuss.

Is gratitude a burden to all but the unassuming?

Are all distances the same to those who don't meet?

If a lover comes back, does this alter the fact that she went away?

Why does deception grow easier with habit?

How narrow is the margin between alarm and fascination?

If we allow our flattery to be seen through, does this constitute a further form of flattery?

Is victory less a matter of scale than of quality?

Why is a completely honest person always so weak?

Is it a mistake to give your boss the idea that slave-driving induces slavery?

[Diana]

Is idealism a crime?

My first question to the Tarot : what is dodalisque meaning by this? Why would idealism even be considered a crime? How can I attempt to answer the question if I don't understand it?

Second question: Where does dodalisque come up with all this?

[dodalisque]

My first question to the Tarot : what is dodalisque meaning by this? Why would idealism even be considered a crime? How can I attempt to answer the question if I don't understand it?

Second question: Where does dodalisque come up with all this?

Well, you probably should consult the tarot itself if you want to find genuinely reliable answers to these questions. But, taking a stab in the dark, I would say that idealism might be considered a crime by anyone who thinks that a rosy, optimistic view of the world and of human nature is merely irresponsible wishful thinking. They would say, along with the gloomy English novelist Thomas Hardy, that "if a better way there be, it exacts a full look at the worst". It's not really such a strange question. Don't all we dreamy tarot types annoy hard-headed scientist types? We would say that idealism is a dream we are striving to to manifest in the material world? But they see lots of dreaming and very little manifesting.

My main source for this particular batch of questions is the English novelist Penelope Fitzgerald. They do not appear as questions in her books but she has a genius for making enigmatic statements that I puzzle over for a long time. Puzzles are pretty easy to turn into questions. These questions are just a few from the selection I made from my notes to 2 of her novels. She wrote 10 other books, so there might be more to come. The greatest novel ever written is her "Beginning of Spring", as I've said on this site a few times. It's set in Russia just before the revolution and it's as though every Russian novel ever written has been compressed into 150 pages.

Hey, Diana, I just came across another question this morning: What is the purpose of embarrassment? But this is mean. I should be answering questions with the tarot rather than asking so many.

Now I think of it, I suppose these questions also remind me of the awful things we had to write about in English and History exams at school. The teachers must have laughed themselves sick setting us such terrible conundrums - all impossibly massive or eternally unanswerable - just to see what nonsense our little adolescent brains would come up with in a couple of hours of blind scribbling. Whose heart has not sunk at the sight of these questions when the exam starts and we are allowed to turn the question paper over.