horoscopes

Sometimes I just wonder about how pervasive horoscopes are in the world today. People know that there are twelve signs, and that a person born in a certain period of time will be born under a certain sign and thus be deemed to be bestowed with certain unique qualities attributed to the sign. Just about everyone knows their sign at the very least. Just about every single major daily dishes out horoscope advice to its readers in the entertainment section. Just about every online news or entertainment website carry articles about the best colors, best days and best relationship compatibilities (or vice versa for that matter) each of the twelve horoscopes should take careful note of.

I can safely bet that most of us, in some point of our young lives for that matter, must have partaken in a certain frenzied pursuit of horoscope knowledge, either to find out why we seem to get on better with that mercurial Gemini compared to the calculative Capricorn, to discover what would lie in store for ourselves, be it the impulsive Aries or moody Cancer, or most importantly, to learn what would it take to get a date with that dream mysterious Scorpio girl or that really hot sporty Sagittarius in the next class.

This brings me to the issue of stereotyping. There are billions of people out there and thus billions of personalities out there. How accurate is it to segregate the whole world into twelve different horoscopes, each with their seemingly arbitrary date ranges (how sure are you that Virgo falls on August 23 every year, considering leap years, elliptical equinoxes blah blah blah), well-defined individual personas and personality traits and clear-cut similar fortunes? How are you to truly define what makes a true-blue fair-minded Libra or proud Leo if everybody is truly characteristically unique as we make it out to be?

Okay fine, I did find out this certain astrolabe thing online which actually gives you a whole report on your traits as influenced by the various star signs based on your time and location of birth. I saw the real thing during the Silk Road exhibition held at the ArtScience Museum and it was pretty fun to manipulate with. You can even locate the stars and planets with it. A quick search in Google Images indicates that the real stuff looks something like that  > > > > > > > > > >

So now it seems like your whole personality-fortune thing is now derived from a unique equation dependent on the location of the planets in the heavens and thus its corresponding horoscope's degree of influence on you. By implication, that might mean that you might be a spiritual Pisces due to its location in the Sun but your mind might also be brimming full of radical ideas due to Aquarius pulling some strings in the Ascendant. If so, then what's the meaning of all that systematic labeling of each horoscope and those little descriptions of your day's fortune in print if everyone's going to be much more unique that it has initially been made out to be?

Questions and frustrations aside, I still find this certain horoscope I added a couple of weeks ago really intriguing. I've dumped many other applications and mentally placed much more websites into my trash folder for they give me loads of bullshit "advice" that totally do not fit in with my life or made my eyes roll just reading the first sentence with its pretentiousness or plain lack of content. Oh and by the way, yes I still do look at horoscopes, more for the fun of it, to see what someone else actually has to say about my life and maybe just take note of some things that I agree with. We can do with a little personal daily reminder right? Your mum can't always get you totally right with her persistent naggings too either yea?

Back to my issue, it has been doling out stuff that has been quite relevant to my moods, energies, lingering thoughts and happenings of the days. Pure coincidence? Whatever, as long as I can resonate with it, I'm buying it. I can always chuck it away when it starts going cranky, can't I? At least for now and the past many many days, this app has made me think and reflect whenever my mind goes into blank mode about my past attitudes and behaviors. That is, at least, the very least positive outcome I would seek to gain from a seriously obfuscating thing like a horoscope.

So mine for today went:
"You are suffering from a fear that doesn't deserve your time. Some fear can be useful - especially when it inspires you to use caution and to think twice before taking a risk. But this fear has no root in reality. It's based in some old insecurity of yours, and you are projecting a problem in your imagination that isn't going to occur. by allowing this hear to trespass through your mind, you are actually nurturing it, and a nurtured fear is the worse kind, so give it the boot right now. There is nothing to be afraid of."

As much as I like to prove why it totally hit with me today, I think some things are best kept to myself. But still, horoscopes are still really intriguing things. After all there's a reason why its still surviving around in a supposedly rationale scientific thinking modern world today yea? And I've got to say its a darn compelling one.