Every act of knowing, every distinction, every knowledge is based on the constant battle between destructive and constructive powers. In that sense, the conflict card resonates the basic insight that knowledge is power. The power to care, and nurture, and sustain. The power to establish the decorated pillars of culture and civilization.

Conflict brings us face to face with clashing powers of violence and cultivation, of incongruity and disparity as a fundamental state of affairs. A state that can potentially, when made personal, reduce the conflict into its manifestations as discord, argument, or a war to be won. In contrast, we can see conflict as a paradox in which we need to acknowledge that nonetheless, each side holds something of the truth.

As a state of discomfort that stands at the core of cognition, conflict helps to embed knowledge in the world, as something that meets a need. The card summons contemplation on the correlation between means and purpose, the link between the path and the goal. Reflection on how we perceive things. What are the ties between passion and creation? What is the relation between bringing into being and sustaining it alive?

The conflict card wishes to remind us of the power of knowing things and the violence embodied in that cognition. It wishes to remind us of the care and cultivation required in order to sustain what we actually know.

Without resistance there is no creation.