I had the same summarily dismissive views of Tarot cards and astrology and their related constituents until I dated a girl a few years ago who put stock into the "answers" they "reveal." That's not to say she converted me or anything. But, because I cared for her, I listened to her talk about those things in way that I hadn't when anyone else spoke of them, i.e. I kept an open mind.
I think they're an attempt to make sense of the otherwise senseless nature in which everything truly seems connected. It's every bit as reductionist as science; it just looks at different parameters.
It makes sense to me in this context: Think about your very best moments in life and then try to remember where
you were when they happened. Not where your body was, because naturally it was wherever the event happened, but where
you were. Can you? Rarely can I recall where
I was in those moments in my life, because
I was so immersed within them that "I forgot to remember" it, if that makes any sense. In other words,
I was so connected to that moment and everything around
me that my brain and its ability to store and recall information were rendered superfluous to the experience.
To bring this to F1, here are Ayrton Senna's thoughts on the qualifying session at Monaco in 1998:
"..the last qualifying session. I was already on pole, then by half a second and then one second and I just kept going. Suddenly I was nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my team mate with the same car. And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension. It was like I was in a tunnel. Not only the tunnel under the hotel but the whole circuit was a tunnel. I was just going and going, more and more and more and more. I was way over the limit but still able to find even more.
Then suddenly something just kicked me. I kind of woke up and realised that I was in a different atmosphere than you normally are. My immediate reaction was to back off, slow down. I drove slowly back to the pits and I didn’t want to go out any more that day. It frightened me because I was well beyond my conscious understanding. It happens rarely but I keep these experiences very much alive inside me because it is something that is important for self-preservation."
I think it's a sort of meditation in which we connect to and harness something that's greater than ourselves which then pushes us further than we could otherwise go on our own. Throughout history, there have been
people who go to extreme lengths (and
heights) to connect to the larger world around them in such a way.
Tarot cards/astrology/whatever, like religion, are attempts to answer that most fundamental of questions, why? Even science thus far has failed to provide definitive answers, and until such answers exist, there will be different ways to see something for what it is.
And Hammy...well he will be Mr. contemplative and chillaxed--if he aligns that is...
