Thoughts about 4.3 and 40.2...
The ancient Chinese saying, "May you live in interesting times", is perhaps the most diabolical curse ever devised. Out and out threats are easily dealt with but subtle distractions distort our focus and ultimately hypnotize, draw us off course and consume us. It seems to me that the bronze man and the bronze arrow referred to in 4.3 and 40.2 are referencing these magnetic pulls and suggest how they should be dealt with. In 4.3 those who are unconscious are drawn into other people's force fields - webs - because their own consciousness, their own magnetic force, their own goal is still undefined. 40.2 describes a state of being strong enough to get past other people's seductive "foxes" because finally one's own focus is so strongly aligned that the interesting times no longer tease them off course from their own goal. Perhaps the bronze arrow is an outer world symbol of the man's inner magnetic will.
The ancient Chinese saying, "May you live in interesting times", is perhaps the most diabolical curse ever devised. Out and out threats are easily dealt with but subtle distractions distort our focus and ultimately hypnotize, draw us off course and consume us. It seems to me that the bronze man and the bronze arrow referred to in 4.3 and 40.2 are referencing these magnetic pulls and suggest how they should be dealt with. In 4.3 those who are unconscious are drawn into other people's force fields - webs - because their own consciousness, their own magnetic force, their own goal is still undefined. 40.2 describes a state of being strong enough to get past other people's seductive "foxes" because finally one's own focus is so strongly aligned that the interesting times no longer tease them off course from their own goal. Perhaps the bronze arrow is an outer world symbol of the man's inner magnetic will.