I'm not as ugly sad as you.

I'm going to take this moment to remind my... uh, very, very few readers... that I get my titles from whatever song I'm currently listening to. They have nothing whatsoever to do with what I write about... usually. Sometimes it works out in a creepy coincidence sort of way.

Hey! Nothing catastrophic happened today, so I'm going to pluck a subject out of my head and just go with it.

....

I had to take that moment to shuffle through already worn-out topics that I frequently enjoy discussing. Something new, something new....

Ah! Astrology.

Here's a thing; I was watching the Cosmos series by Carl Sagan a few months ago with my father and my friend of the time, Nicki. Nicki is a huge believer in astrology, that the movement of the stars and their pull on our little planet has a lot to do with who you are, if it does not simply define the human being. Carl Sagan was remarking that Astrology had taken on a
reverence in daily life very much like spirituality or religion, and that it was remarkable so many could be fooled by it. He had, as an example, two different news papers; one from New York and one from Los Angeles, I think. He read the horoscope from both papers for the same sign; both of which were not only vague but completely different, though they were on the same day.

My friend Nicki believes that astrology is something of a science, and that the only reason these two papers were so different from one another was that someone was 'interpreting things wrong' or did not know what they were doing at all. I asked Nicki how you could know the difference since it was often those same people that wrote the books on astrology that she was so deep into. Nicki could not answer these questions, or put it to herself to question something that she believed in so much.

I find it very amusing that some people who believe in nothing--are not a part of any organized religion--will still find comfort in an unknown 'voice from the heavens' telling them who they are and what their day will be like. I'm not saying that everyone that believes in astrology is non-religious, but I find a great many are.

Carl Sagan was making a point that astrology had no roots in fact, that it was entirely mythological in context and yet people believe in it very strongly. If you're a Virgo you are not supposed to get along with Libra's. If you're a Dragon beware the Dog . People will believe these things with no evidence, no shred of proof. The only thing they have to go on is that perhaps, at some point, someone 'non compatible' they ended up not getting along with.

I think I've had friends from pretty much every astrological sign. A lot of us have had falling outs, but mainly because we're young and as we grow older find that interests do not remain the same. I'm a Virgo and Nicki is a Libra. We've fought more then any other friendship I've had, but we still remain friends--if shakily. It is not because of our sign that we are often at odds, it is because of our personalities, the way we were raised.

My sign has never described me. I delved deeper and found a rising sign, Pisces, and am still trying to figure out how that is supposed to make much sense at all. I read horoscopes for the occasional good advice; but I read the horoscopes of every sign, not just my own.

We're in an age where religion is declining, yet mythtisism is on the rise. Spirituality is taking the place of the old doctrines. I believe this is the path of evolution that we (the human race) are currently traveling towards.

Hm... on a semi-related note, I had a fact hit me about two months ago that has really irked me. Not the usual minor annoyance.... something really pissed me off. I realized that I'm going to die. Yeah, yeah, I should have known that. But, I mean, this is the context in which I realized my death;

I was standing on the deck of my Uncle's house boat. I was watching someone plant a sapling tree about twenty feet from some twenty-foot pine. I realized that the tree that was currently being planted would probably outlive me by a few hundred years. Suddenly I felt this wave of anger--a fucking tree was going to outlive me. Yes, trees serve a vital part of this ecosystem but--damnit! I'm a sentient, thinking, living being! Why can't I live a few hundred years?

Then later that day I was at the library in Redwood City and looking around at all the books and realized, quite suddenly just as I had with the trees--I'm never going to be able to read all of these books. I know this thought should not have angered me, but it did. A lot more then the tree. I am never going to be able to read all of the books that I want to. Hell, there are people on this world that will read ten times as much as I will in my lifetime--and even they cannot read everything that there is to read in a single city library.

Books are a nearly-sacred thing to me; in fact, they're most definitely sacred. The fact that we have found a way to preserve and pass on our knowledge from generation to generation is more then amazing. I revere books. Then I realized, quite suddenly and quite clearly, that I'd never be able to read them all. And not just them all--I'll never be able to read all the books that I WANT to read--the thousands upon thousands that I would personally enjoy reading or have expressed interest in. Imagine twenty years from now when my list has tripled in size and the original was no in any shape to be read.

I have been in quite a mood these last few months. Not scared, not frightened--because death is inevitable and why waste time worrying about it?--but indignant. Disgusted. I'm going to live a puny human life span or maybe less, pending natural disasters, disease, accidents, etc. I, an intelligent human, am going to live just as long as everyone else.

I suppose I had always held up hope for immortality, or some extended life on account of the life I've lived and the things I know. Some sort of gift from the unknown entities that are floating about--or NOT--as a 'job well done' pat on the back.

I mean--two hundred years would be nice. Really nice. Or a thousand. To be able to devote hundreds of years to study and reading, to just absorb knowledge for a great long time.

I really hope there is some sort of life after death. If there isn't, I'm going to be pissed. Not like I'll know because I'll be dead--but the memory of me will be quite fucking angry.

And because I am who I am, I have to acknowledge that I just DON'T KNOW.

I want to believe what a scientist in physics was saying on some documentary I was watching--that energy does not break down or disappear, that it simply changes, and so reincarnation or another form of life is not that far-fetched... but I don't know if this guy was simply deluding himself as well as others or--what? I don't know.

The thing is; I don't feel like my body. Teigra is in the mind, she lives inside herself and is... is. Teigra is not the flesh that she occupies or the bones or the veins or the organs--I feel like the mind more then the body. Spirit and not flesh. I believe in spirit to a degree, but I wonder if it too can rot and die like the rest of us? Everything comes to an end.

Isn't this, like, what everyone who is anyone has debated throughout history? Why do we waste the time?

I think it's because no matter how much we deny it, we really are afraid of dying. We just distract ourselves and reason with ourselves and hypothesis about what will happen to make the fact of it less frightening.

Maybe.

Vous offrir au revoir et bonne nuit,

-Lady Teigra-