December 2008

we are very small

Check out GRIN for so many beautiful pictures.

My mother was a hip lass, and while I was trapped in a southern baptist school against my will for 9 years (for the quality education), I discovered her old astrology books in our basement. They were full of trippy illustrations and referred to women as “birds”. They were full of sexuality and men with beards and the way they described my supposed personality as an Aries was so strong and bold and dominant that I wanted desperately to be this person on the pages. I wanted to be the most powerful girl of the zodiac that was also the most challenging to date. (God bless a self-fulfilling prophecy.) I adored these books. I adored that they would piss off my teachers and make them think I was the spawn of the devil. (I think the good grades are what saved me from an exorcism.) I adored the albeit weak connection to astronomy, which was a deep passion of mine growing up.

Soon, it ruled my life. I was one of those jerks who had to ask you what your sign was if I intended on exchanging more than three sentences with you. This then allowed me to make judgement calls on people when I knew absolutely nothing about them. This allowed me to feel like I knew something special, like I had an advantage over people. Any guy I met would get a thorough studying up on so I would be prepared for what was inevitably going to happen. I couldn’t have been more wrong. In fact, I believe it was an extreme disadvantage, as it limited my expectations and what I allowed myself to perceive. The mind can play silly little tricks on you when you allow it to. You start reading into everything and seeing things that aren’t there in people. You explain things and make assumptions that you have absolutely no right to and you are usually so wrong on so many levels that your life is a constant humbling experience. You grasp for even more complex explanations to why things aren’t making sense. You lose your appreciation for the intricate variables and spontaneity in the lives of others and end up not taking people for who they are, at face value. While we all strive to have some semblance of control and predictability over our lives, the fact that I was buying into the exact same type of hocus pocus bullshit I was reacting against in school makes no sense, in hindsight.

Astrology became my religion when I was a child and it didn’t leave me until a few years ago when I was lucky enough to take History of Psychology under my friend Beth’s father, Professor Leahey, who wrote the text, A History of Psychology (an amazing book and the reviews are so nice). He basically explained the building blocks of all the philosophical theories throughout history that contributed to the interest in and formation of psychology as a modern science. Through this, I could clearly see the reasons why it eventually led up to astrology as a desperate attempt at gaining answers about life. (We also once thought that rats spontaneously came from dirty rags. A limited knowledge of science can make for some wacky and fantastic explanations… much like every religion, but I’ll keep my mouth shut about that for now.)

Sometimes when you are faced with such an intelligently argued and brilliantly simple explanation, you have no choice but to let go and submit to Occam’s Razor. There was just no way any of it could be real and finally, I was free.

It was difficult at first to retrain myself with a new set of operant conditioning tools. I no longer asked people what their sign was, refused to refer to what was now a collection of about 30 books, refused to think about what was already stored in my brain. I just went with the flow and life was lovely. Men still managed to disappoint just as much as they always had but I got more joy out of getting to know people for who they truly were. I quit projecting past fears onto new people. I quit avoiding certain people because we weren’t supposed to be compatible. I reacquainted myself with old friends.

I also have come to grips with the fact that I’m not really an Aries, Libra rising, Aquarius moon, Venus in Aquarius, Mars in Pisces. I am a human being who has been shaped by nature and nurture just like everyone else. I have many moods that can’t be explained by anything and I am as changeable as a chameleon and as predictable as a sunrise. Some people make me want to smack them just from looking at them and some people steal my heart in an instant.

It’s a little bit embarassing to admit now that something so silly could have such a hold on my thought processes for so long. Lately though, I have been noticing astrology as a reference point in a few blogs and when I thought that it had kind of lost its appeal, I see that it still is quite popular. A while back, Doe Deer wrote about this insanity. I just dug it up and thought you’d enjoy.

I have a really hard time throwing away books and while I could’ve sold my collection on eBay, I really just want them all to rot so, I have been slowly throwing a few of these sad little books in the garbage whenever I think about it. I threw my last ones away yesterday. It was especially cathartic and a nice way to start a new year. What chains or silly ideas do you need to let go of?

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