future

Except for the blind, everybody is afraid of the dark. Imperfection is the fuel that keeps the spark between two people alive. For example one of my ex-lovers was pathologically afraid of the dark and every time she had to use the toilet in the middle of the night, I was called upon as her knight in shining armour to switch on the lights rescuing my damsel in distress from her untimely bladder. I found this strange and adorable at the same time, considering how much of a…‘tough cookie’ she was in everyday life. After teasing her multiple times about her nyctophobia she found a ton pages in my bedroom detailing how the month of Virgo would proceed that year.  Knowing my disdain for irrational and unjustified belief she found the perfect ammunition to get revenge by letting all of our friends know that I was a star sign fanatic. Initially I denied the allegations with maximum vigour but there was nothing I could do when she pulled out the evidence in form of pictures of the phone for all to see. I was embarrassed, but why?

With shame, I confess that I believe that the stars you are born under determine what kind of personality you will have in life.

Every single race, civilization and culture in recorded human history has looked upon the stars for guidance and with curiosity. To the point that in a lot of nomadic cultures, being able to recognize changes in the heavenly constellations was an integral part of their survival, as it indicated the changes in the seasons of the ‘year’, deciding whether the nomads should stay or look for greener pastures in the days that lie ahead. Our fascination with the little lights in the sky is ingrained in our DNA through a condition called apophenia, a tendency to see patterns in unrelated and random phenomena. Even though this affliction of pattern recognition is our greatest strength, it is also our greatest weakness. It forces a nine year old boy, who has a huge crush on one of his classmates, to consistently check the astrology pages in the newspaper, for the right moment when he can declare his Virgo love for his Gemini yellow bone princess. In a meticulous but innocently written love letter or for the very same idiot who still makes wishes every time he sees a shooting star, to proclaim that there is no life after death.

With shame, I confess that I believe that the stars you are born under determine what kind of personality you will have in life. My rationalisation is that the unique combination of electromagnetic waves emitted by the constellation that you were conceived under, affects a foetus on a cellular level causing similarities in people born around the same time.  Although my fascination is often replaced with existential dread when I go through the scientific literature were stars are concerned. I keep having a reoccurring nightmare that a public announcement is made through every form of technology available, that a comet will be hitting the earth in the next couple of moments, wiping out all life on this beautiful planet of ours. I freeze in terror as I look at the comet entering our atmosphere, as it burns up I wake up just before it hits the earth.

Mother earth is practically nothing, we are nothing and I am less than nothing in the darkness that is the universe.

The universe is an unimaginably large entity, which is expanding at a rate faster than the speed of light, thus we cannot see where it ends or where it once began.  The only thing that gives us a sense of what it is, are the big balls of gas that burn within it, the stars. But our star, the Sun, is an insignificant speck of dust relative to the trillions upon trillions of stars in the universe.  Mother earth is practically nothing, we are nothing and I am less than nothing in the darkness that is the universe. Thus I forgive myself for taking comfort in the silly superstitions that are derived from the only source of light and warmth in this black dark universe.

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