The Chariot

The Chariot is frequently summarized as "triumph over adversity". I think, though, that it is important to understand how this triumph is achieved, i.e. through control.

I talked a little about it in the Devil post, but this card is really the one most directly concerned with the idea of control. Because in order to drive the chariot, someone has to hold the reins, and if you want to get where you're going, it is highly advisable that that person be you.

When I look at this card, I think of the myth of Phaeton, the son of the god Helios, whose job was to drive the sun across the sky in his chariot. At some point, Helios made the mistake of offering to grant any one wish of his half-mortal offspring, and Phaeton immediately took him up on it by asking to drive the sun in Helios' stead one day.

Helios immediately realized what an idiot he had been to make the offer but by then it was too late--he had promised. This should serve as a lesson, by the way, that there are some promises that are best not kept.

So Phaeton drove off in the chariot, and of course he made a royal mess of things, and he ended up scorching the earth, and Zeus had to strike him down with a thunderbolt, and Phaeton's body fell into a river, and that was it for Phaeton.

This story is all about control, and power. Although it is easy to get them mixed up, control and power are not at all the same thing. The horses pulling the chariot are stronger (i.e. more powerful) than the driver, but the driver controls them. Therefore, control can use power to achieve an end very effectively, just as power can use control for its ends too. The best thing is when power and control work together, because they sort of check each other and balance each other.

When they don't work together, there are problems. This is what happens with the classic controlling individuals. These people use control to compensate for their feelings of disempowerment and in case you don't know, it is a giant pain in the ass.

There are a lot of ways to be controlling. You don't have to know someone to be controlled by them. One example is when you're driving the car, and the person in front of you is going well under the speed limit. Just try and pass that person. They will speed up to a million miles per hour, and if you pass them anyway, they will honk and flip you off. You were supposed to stay behind them.

I bring this up so as not to get into the usual "my mother/my boyfriend is controlling" thing. Everybody's mother and/or boyfriend is controlling in some way because, when they love something, people want to keep it close to them. This is the natural human instinct. My mother-in-law uses food for control, my mom does it with money. What does your mom do? What do you do? I think that is a very hard question to ask of ourselves. In what way am I controlling of other people?

As I said before, I am more of a power person than a control person. I want everybody to just do whatever they want and leave me alone. I don't want to control anybody and I don't want to be controlled. This is why my dog Spike was the most disobedient dog on the planet. He never actually obeyed a single command, he just humored me when he felt like it, which was hardly ever.

But that is probably controlling too. Keeping people (and dogs) at a distance is a way of controlling them, I suppose. Sitting up in an Ivory Tower, saying "You, yes; you, no," as I was once accused of doing, is controlling. So being in denial about the whole control thing, or acting like control is some kind of hideous character flaw like halitosis, is really not helpful or realistic.

In Jiu-Jitsu, which is a form of grappling, they tell you that the first thing to do when you want to control someone is pull him in close. This is counter-intuitive to some extent--our instinct is to back away from a conflict situation. But when there is no place to back to, you need to get right in there and control your person before he can control you.

Of course, before you can take the reins of control into your sweaty little palms, it is really helpful to know what it is you want, and what you don't want, and where you are willing to compromise. It is helpful to have a plan--a flexible plan, but a plan.

And it is helpful for the whole team to be in on the plan, the team being head, heart, and body. This is hard in my case, since my team does not really get along. My head thinks my heart is a complete idiot, my heart is too cowardly to tell my heart to go to hell, and my body is in a state of almost total disconnect from both. In other words, I have more or less the same degree of internal unity as the Bad News Bears.

But enough about me. The deal is, you can't control your heart, whereas the head and body are much easier to control. So the only option seems to be to put the heart in control. I know that sounds like a very bad idea to any thinking person, whereas all the touchy feely people of the world are like, "What?". The analogy I would draw would be Rainman. Remember when Tom Cruise wanted to fly to L.A. and Rainman was like, No way, only on Qantas. And so Rainman (i.e. the heart) ended up being in charge, and they drove, and it turned out really well, actually. It didn't go how Tom Cruise wanted it to go but it was fine.

So I'm babbling here, but this is a draft. Getting back to Triumph Over Adversity, that is pretty much what it's about. It ain't no bed of roses, although it can be nice, and all, but in general, a lot of times, in this life, you're like, "Fuck." So that's when we all kind of need to get in there, and latch on to whatever is bugging us, and not let go until we are controlling IT and not the other way around.