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The Hanged Man in the centre of the Matrix of Destiny

Mechanics. A strange combination comes off you: stillness and calm. People nearby slow down. You see a situation differently from everyone else, because you look at it from another angle, and in conversation you can say the one sentence that turns the whole argument over for the other person, who then sits silent for a minute, because the turning-over did not hurt and so was unexpected. You are read as someone not quite from here. A little out of the common rhythm. You decline to join the race on principle, which irritates the active and attracts the tired.

Works when you need to look at things differently: therapy, art, science, long projects without quick results, any work where you first have to understand and only then do. You can wait in a way others cannot, and the advantage is underrated. An idea that was born and died within a week for a colleague, you carry for a year and a half, turn this way and that, and finally produce a version that could not have been reached the quick way.

Breaks when the pause becomes a way of life. You hang: neither leaving nor staying, neither starting nor dropping, explaining to yourself that now is not the time, and the time does not come, and five years pass in which outwardly nothing has changed. The second failure is sacrifice. You put up with an uncomfortable position, build a feeling of having given for nothing, and wait to be noticed and appreciated. They will not notice. A sacrifice is rarely noticed at all, and if it is, it is not thanked, because the person beside you is uncomfortable living with a sense of a debt that does not exist.

What it looks like:

• You have been about to quit for the third year and have collected a dozen reasons why this is not the right moment, though each is exactly the same as at the start.
• In an argument you say what the others did not think of, and the conversation changes course.
• You take decisions slowly, but afterwards almost never revisit them.

What to do.

1. Put a term on the pause. A pause with an end date is productive; an open-ended one turns into a pit.
2. Check what exactly you are sacrificing for, and whether anyone asked you to.
3. One small action a day where you are stuck. A letter, a call, anything.

Takeaway: you are read as the one who sees differently; seeing differently is useful as long as you are not hanging.