Chapter 11 5.Father is a magic mirror through which a man examines himself most clearly

I ate lunch at an American restaurant near Roger's company. I am a vegetarian, and a large plate of smoked chicken Caesar salad already made me feel very satisfied. Roger sliced ​​the steak gracefully with a relaxed expression. "You are very relaxed now." I rested my chin on his face curiously. "Really?" He froze for a moment. "So far, I have never seen you so relaxed." "It's lighter, and I feel that I have unloaded a lot of things, a lot." He smiled heartily, and I could understand how he felt. During the dinner, Roger narrated the most impressive encounters in the past ten years. I will not express any opinions or make any judgments, and I am just a listener.

He still hasn't talked about his father, and I'm going to start that conversation later. "That card is indeed different from me." "Which one?" "My father's one." "You are very similar to him in your bones. Everyone was young once." "You mean, he also had a bad start-up period like mine? Oh no, I don't believe it." "In your mind, what kind of person is he?" This question is obviously full of my curiosity about this "big man". "It's hard to describe. He has been very strict with me since he was a child, maybe because he is the only child, but he is very gentle with my mother. They have a very good relationship. He rarely loses his temper in front of my mother."

"That's probably why there's never been a big conflict between you two." "possible." Presumably Roger's mother is a woman like the Queen of the Holy Grail, with a deep tolerance and balance. "Do you think he's the Pope?" Now we can talk about the card without any qualms, and Roger doesn't mind that it's become a part of his personality. "In my impression, the pope is still pretty. When it comes to this, I will unconsciously feel disappointed in myself." "Because you ended up becoming like him anyway?" Roger nodded.

"Don't think so, you are his child, he is your father, and you are each other's mirrors." "Mirror?" Roger looked up, feeling that the metaphor was a bit interesting. "Father, it is a magic mirror through which a man examines himself most clearly." "But he's not a standard pope, is he?" Indeed, when Roger was concentrating on thinking about his father, what he drew was a reversed Pope. "Reverse." Roger's mind must have thought of the upside-down head of the Pope again. "I once said that all the fifth cards in TAROT suggest some kind of incongruous conflict. position, the conflict it implies becomes reconcilable.”

"So, the Pope's inverted position is better than his normal position?" "indeed so. "The inverted pope implies a certain kind of flexibility. In other words, your father is a man who knows himself very well, and he knows how to balance the double-edged sword in his character. What is good for him and what is needed. He is very clear about restraint and avoidance, and the most important thing is that the attitude of the inverted pope towards others is very different from that of the upright pope..." "You've started using us as a comparison mirror."

Roger interrupted me unexpectedly, seeming a bit unacceptable. "If you mind, we can end this topic completely." I let him think for a while. The decision is his, and I will not force my client to discuss topics with me that he does not want to discuss. Roger ordered two cups of coffee, and it seemed that he didn't intend to go back to the office anytime soon. "Sometimes, I do feel that he is different from me, I feel like him and not like him, and this kind of thinking sometimes makes me confused about myself. After all, he is successful, I hope I can be like him , then I will succeed sooner or later, and at the same time, I hope that I will not be like him, because what I want is my own success, not a copy and replica of success."

"Speaking of which, I can understand why you don't want to go back and help your father." "It's a very complicated feeling. It's not the childish rebellion and resistance you imagined. Even if there was a little bit when I was eighteen, it's gone now. After all, I'm almost thirty." I couldn't help laughing. "I believe that in your father's eyes, there is not much difference between your thirty and eighteen years old." "You woman, you speak so cruelly." It's rare for Roger to describe me as "you woman" so rudely. I don't mind, provoking him is something that could happen at any time, and he in front of him has gradually learned to control his anger.

"It's true, in the eyes of our parents, we are always children. "Over the years, have you ever pondered his motives for trying to keep in touch with you?" "No." "Well, think about it now, as if you re-acquainted with this person." I push away the coffee mug and redraw the upside-down pope. "Give in. He asked me to bow my head, admit defeat to him, and admit that it was a mistake for me to leave home willfully." "It seems that you didn't understand my explanation of the hanging card, or you didn't listen at all." "What do you mean by that?"

His "murderous intent" faintly blew over again. "The core meaning of Hanging Man is to 'look at the world from another angle'." I placed the upright hanging man next to the inverted pope, hoping that these two cards would create a mind-reversing moment for Roger. "Putting them together?" "Yes, when the Hanged Man and the Inverted Pope stood together, what did you think of?" Roger looked sad, he couldn't figure it out. "Can you try to look at your father from another angle?" Roger still didn't speak, I watched his face silently.

He didn't take his eyes off the card. Looking at it, he began to lean forward, holding half of his cheek with one hand. Roger didn't open his mouth, so I continued to wait... until, unexpectedly, I found that bright and wet tears were shining in the corner of his stubborn eyes. At that moment, I felt an unspeakable emotion in my heart. He saw it. Saw another father, a man he had never really known. That feeling was both strange and familiar, warm and unreachable. He realized that it was what he had been longing for all along. He thought that it didn't exist, it couldn't exist, but now, he really felt it. Arrived.

At this moment, I am willing to express this invaluable feeling through TAROT instead of him. "The inverted pope is a person who knows how to listen to his inner voice. No matter how busy he is, as long as you need him, he will definitely be there waiting and always ready to bear your pain." Tears slipped down quietly, wet his fingers holding half of his cheeks, and Roger quickly wiped them away. "He's not what I imagined..." Roger couldn't help murmuring. It's hard for me to guess what kind of man appeared in his mind at this time, in short, it was no longer the one he was familiar with. "Maybe, he didn't really want you to go back, but just wanted to express the simplest thoughts of a father; maybe, he never wanted you to surrender to him, but just wanted to share with you the youth he once had; maybe , he, like me, is just a friend who wants to help you see yourself clearly and get on the road to success."