Seven of Coins

1. Success unfulfilled
2. Inactivity
3. Loss of promised money.

-- David Allen Hulse, The Western Mysteries

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"The Pursuit Of Success Makes Gamblers Of Us All..."

When last I wrote about this card, I pretty much declared it the card of FAIL, but that interpretation is by no means the final word on the matter. If you look at the Waite deck's depiction, the first significant artistic impression of the card beyond the run-of-the-mill heap of disks that preceded it, you'll see a farmer observing the fruit of his labor with a very ambiguous expression on his face. He's not exactly rending his hair and garments or anything, but he's also not overjoyed at what he sees before him. I accept his posture as a sign that the harvest isn't exactly what he expected, to say the least.

Every enterprise requires us to take risks. We trust in nature, even though the earth itself cannot be counted on to hold still under our feet, and every now and then it shakes us apart just to remind us of that. Our fellow human beings are even more mercurial, yet we place a lot of trust in each other so that we can what's called a civilization -- we put our money in banks, we sleep behind mere wooden doors, we live side by side in an uneasy truce that isn't broken nearly as often as one might expect. The pursuit of success makes gamblers of us all; we sow our seeds, we set wheels in motion, and then we cross our fingers.

Cakewrecks is one small corner of the internet devoted to this principle; calling a bakery to order a cake for a special occasion doesn't seem like a particularly risky venture, but the results aren't always what you'd quite expect. Take these wedding cakes, for example; in each case the customer provided photos of what they wanted, and what they got was... well, at least it's a cake, right? The Obama cake shown above is a good example of the so-close-yet-so-far-away idea behind the Seven of Coins.

You could say that the Obama presidency itself is another such example; after a real nailbiter of an election and a historically jubilant victory, the nation seems to be slowly coming to terms with the fact that all our problems won't be solved overnight. The dread, dismay, and even anger that I've started to hear from formerly devout Obama supporters puzzles me. Our new president may be a huge advocate for change, but change doesn't happen overnight -- and the consequences of all great changes exist in a future that we can barely imagine, let alone plan for. Letting reality guide our expectations instead of desire is the surest way to make sure we're happy with what we get -- and being able to overlook the way a cake is frosted and still enjoy the way it tastes is one way to combat life's inevitable disappointments.

Previously on Arcanalogue...

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Seven of Coins

Comics aficionados have stepped forward to nominate the Weekly Reader's Uncle Funny Bunny and Chumpy as the worst comic strip of all time. "The consistently corny gags, the awful stiff artwork… surely this takes the prize," says Jerry at Cartoon Brew. This isn't hyperbole -- if you flip through the samples, the comic is consistently and almost hypnotically dismal.

The Seven of Coins is all about failure, usually a venture or project that is either fatally flawed from the outset, or bears disappointing fruit. I suppose I could have taken the easy route and simply linked to the Fail Blog, which catalogs "photos and video of owned, pwned, and fail moments," but there's something far more unsettling in the Uncle Funny Bunny toons. This was someone's job. He set out weekly to entertain children, and whether he was just phoning it in or actually got a great deal of enjoyment out of his work, ultimately they just aren't even remotely funny or entertaining, not in any decade or any language. Epic fail.

This card warns us that our labor may not bear the fruit we had in mind. Perhaps paying careful attention or purging all corrupting influences can save the crop, as it were. But you also ought to consider that it might be just fractally wrong, and that you'd be better off starting over with a new plan. You don't want to unleash another Uncle Funny Bunny on the world if you can help it! [Via]

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